Child of God(6)

shed. Ballard squinted in the dust going up the road. By the time he got to the county road it had begun to spit rain. He called the dog once more and he waited and then he went on. THE WEATHER TURNED overnight. With the fall the sky grew bluer than he'd ever known. Or could remember. He sat hour-long in the windy sedge with the sun on his back. As if he'd store the warmth of it against the oncoming winter. He watched a corn picker go snarling through the fields and in the evening he and the doves went husbanding among the chewed and broken stalks and he gathered several sackfuls and carried them to the cabin before dark. The hardwood trees on the mountain subsided into yellow and flame and to ultimate nakedness. An early winter fell, a cold wind sucked among the black and barren branches. Alone in the empty shell of a house the squatter watched through the moteblown glass a rimshard of bone colored moon come cradling up over the black balsams on the ridge, ink trees a facile hand had sketched against the paler dark of winter heavens. A man much for himself. Drinkers gone to Kirby's would see him on the road by night, slouched and solitary, the rifle hanging in his hand as if it were a thing he could not get shut of. He'd grown lean and bitter. Some said mad. A malign star kept him. He stood in the crossroads listening to other men's hounds on the mountain. A figure of wretched arrogance in the lights of the few cars passing. In their coiling dust he cursed or muttered or spat after them, the men tightly shouldered in the high old sedans with guns and jars of whiskey among them and lean tree dogs curled in the turtledeck. One cold morning on the Frog Mountain turnaround he found a lady sleeping under the trees in a white gown. He watched her for a while to see if she were dead. He threw a rock or two, one touched her leg. She stirred heavily, her hair all caught with leaves. He went closer. He could see her heavy breasts sprawled under the thin stuff of her nightdress and he could see the dark thatch of hair under her belly. He knelt and touched her. Her slack mouth twisted. Her eyes opened. They seemed to open downward by the underlids like a bird's and her eyeballs were gorged with blood. She sat up suddenly, a sweet ferment of whiskey and rot coming off her. Her lip drew back in a cat's snarl. What do you want, you son of a bitch? she said. Ain't you cold? What the hell is it to you? It ain't a damn thing to me. Ballard had risen and stood above her with the rifle. Where's your clothes at? She rose up and staggered backwards and sat down hard in the leaves. Then she got up again. She stood there weaving and glaring at him with her puffed and heavy lidded eyes. Son of a bitch, she said. Her eyes were casting about. Spying a rock, she lunged and scrabbled it up and stood him off with it. Ballard's eyes narrowed. You better put down that rock, he said. You make me. I said to put it down. She drew the rock back menacingly. He took a step forward. She heaved the rock and hit him in the chest with it and then covered her face with her hands. He slapped her so hard it spun her back around facing him. She said: I knowed you'd do me

thisaway. Ballard touched his hand to his chest and glanced down quickly to check for blood but there was none. She had her face buried in her hands. He took hold of the strap of her gown and gave it a good yank. The thin material parted to the waist. She turned loose of her face and grabbed at the gown. Her nipples were hard and blue looking with the cold. Quit, she said. Ballard seized a fistful of the wispy rayon and snatched it. Her feet came from under her and she sat in the trampled frozen weeds. He folded the garment under his arm and stepped back. Then he turned and went on down the road. She sat stark naked on the ground and watched him go, calling various names after him, none his. FATE'S ALL RIGHT. He's plainspoken but I like him. I've rode with him a lot of times. I remember one night up on the Frog Mountain at the turnaround there they was a car parked up there and Fate put the lights on em and walked on up there. The old boy in the car was all yessir and nosir. Had this girl with him. He ast the old boy for his license and the old boy scratched around for the longest time, couldn't find his pocketbook nor nothin. Fate finally told him, said: Step out here. Said the old girl settin there was white as a sheet. Well, the old boy opened the door and out he steps. Fate looked at him and then he hollered at me, said: John, come here and see this. I went on up there and the old boy is standin by the side of the car lookin down and the sheriff is lookin down, got the light on him. We're all standin there lookin down at this old boy and he's got his britches on inside out. Pockets hangin outside all around. Looked crazier'n hell. Sheriff just told him to go on. Ast him if he could drive like that. That's the kind of feller he is. WHEN BALLARD CAME OUT onto the porch there was a thin man with a collapsed jaw squatting in the yard waiting for him. What say Darfuzzle, said Ballard. What say Lester. He sounded like a man with a mouthful of marbles, articulating his goat bone under jaw laboriously, the original one having been shot away. Ballard squatted on his heels in the yard opposite the visitor. They looked like constipated gargoyles. Say you found that old gal up on the turnaround? Ballard sniffed. What gal? he said. That'n was left up yonder. Had on a nightgown. Ballard pulled at the loose sole of his shoe. I seen her, he said. She's went to the sheriff. She has? The other man turned and spat and looked back toward Ballard. They done arrested Pless. That's your all's lookout. I didn't have nothin to do with her. She says you did. She's a lyin sack of green shit. The visitor rose. I just thought I'd tell ye, he said. You do what you want. THE HIGH SHERIFF OF SEVIER County came out through the courthouse doors and stood on the portico surveying the gray lawn below with the benches and the Sevier County pocketknife society that convened there to whittle and mutter and spit.