Suttree went on up the bank.
He studied the brail rig in the old man’s skiff and went into the woods to cast about for suitable saplings to make the uprights. He’d set the boy to straightening nails, beating them out with a rock. The old man had wandered off somewhere.
He sat in the stern of his skiff and trimmed the poles he’d cut, dressing the forks, shaving the lower ends flat to be nailed to the sides of the skiff. The white waxy woodpeelings coiled up cleanly under his knife and he watched them spin and drift on the river. With the point of the knife he bored holes partway through the flats on the butt end so that the wood would not split when it was nailed. The old man had come down the bank and was sitting on his heels nodding at Suttree’s work and making encouraging talk. He always expected everyone to be out of heart.
By evening they had the skiff rigged with a ramshackle and barbarous facsimile of a brailboat’s gear. Suttree carried the brails aboard and stowed them in the trees of the uprights and Reese eyed the sun.
You want to make a run this evening?
I dont think so.
You and the boy might make just a short run and see how she does.
Suttree stood up in the skiff and stepped ashore. And we might not, he said.
Well. We can get an early start of the mornin.
Suttree didnt answer. He went on toward the camp where smoke was rising from the supper fire.
Hidy, said the girl with studied boldness.
Hey, said Suttree. She was white with flour to her elbows, bent above a breadboard kneading biscuit dough. The two smaller girls were standing behind her and the old woman was at the fire. One of the girls poked her head around and said something and the older girl slapped at her and they fled shrieking with giggles.
Oh you all … Mama, make her quit.
You all quit, said the woman. She was stoking the fire and fixing the sheet of tin laid over the rocks. Flames licked from under the edges. There was a kettle and an iron pot on the tin and it sagged badly under the weight.
Is there any coffee? Suttree said.
Is there any coffee Mama?
You know there aint no coffee.
I dont guess there is none, said the girl.
What time do we eat?
In about a hour. It wont be long.
Suttree scratched his jaw and looked about. There was an old mattress in the lean-to and a packingcrate with an oil lamp on it and a miscellany of junk stored along the dark stone wall at the rear. He went down to the river again and stretched out on a cool rock in the shade and looked down into the water. On the rippled silt floor of the eddy a small turtle shifted with uncertain bowlegs. Small bits of wood, twigs, lay furred with silt and a muddog lay inert with its obscene gills branching like bright fungus. Suttree’s face shifted and dished. A waterspider crossed on jointed horsehair legs and the river gave off a cool metallic smell. He spat at his trembling visage and sat up and took off his shoes and socks and lowered his feet into the water.
They ate on what looked like an outhouse door. A weathered wooden trestle propped on poles. Suttree was afraid to lean on it. They sat on planks and cinderblocks, the smallest girl’s chin just clearing the boards. Suttree was lightheaded with hunger.
The iron pot came aboard and the kettle and pan of biscuits. In the kettle were some rough and hairy greens he’d never met before. In the pot whitebeans. He stirred them but no trace of fat meat turned up. He eyed the boy across the board and began to eat faster.
After supper they sat around the fire while the girls washed the dishes. The old man brought a soft and greasy leather bible from the lean-to and opened it on his knees. When the dishes were done the girls gathered around and the old man commenced to read aloud from the text. Suttree had gone to the river and fetched the two cans of beer. He opened them at the table and carried them to the fire and handed one to the old man. His eyes brightened in the firelight when he saw it. Lord have mercy looky here, he said.
Suttree gestured with his can and drank. The beer was cold and slightly bitter and very good. The old man tilted his beer to drink.
Dont you read scripture and drink that, the woman said.
What?
You heard me. Dont you read scripture and drink that.
Why hell fire, said Reese.
Nor cuss neither. You put that up or finish that beer one.
He looked around to see if anyone might be on his side. Suttree went off down to his little knoll above the river.
They went to sleep like dogs, curling up in their bedding on the ground until they were a scattering of dark shapeless mounds beneath the bluff. The fire had died. Suttree shucked off shoes and trousers and lay in his blanket. The river talked all night in the shoals. Some dogs in the anonymous distance beyond set up a clamor but they were far away and their barking muted by the river fell lost and dreamlike on his ears.