The Orchard Keeper(31)

Lord God, she said, this youngern’s wet clear through. He’s a-fixin to take pneumony. She set down her cup and began pulling at the coat, trying to help him off with it. He seemed bent and tottering under the sheer weight of it.

They got him out of his coat and by then the man had finished his coffee and stood and he said he was ready to go if June didn’t mind taking them.

So they thanked the woman, declining breakfast two or three times, and filed through the door, him holding the mackinaw in his arms now like a great bundle of wet wash, and got into a pickup truck parked behind the house and pointing down the drive. June kicked the blocks from under the front wheels and got in and they began rolling silently, gaining speed, and then he let in the clutch and the motor came to life angrily and they catapulted down to the road, turned left toward the mountain, the truck coughing and lurching and a bluish haze boiling up in the cab. He sat in the middle between the two men, trying to keep his knees clear of the gearshift. Through a missing slat in the floorboard he could see the gray road sliding under and a slip of bitter wind angled up one jean-leg.

They drove a mile or so up the mountain and turned into another drive not unlike the one from which they started. June turned the truck around in the yard and stopped and Marion opened the door and climbed painfully down. The boy waited.

Better come on in, Marion said. The boy turned and started to say something and then June said, behind him:

Reckon I better get on back.

Well, he said, I sure am much obliged. John Wesley, you better come on in and get dried out some; your old lady’ll skin you for shoe leather.

So he clambered out of the truck and slammed the door, the truck already moving and June waving at them, and he and the man started for the house. It was full light now, the air smoky and cold. A woman was standing in the door with her arms crossed, holding her shoulders. She let them past and came in, closing the door behind her.

Mornin, the man said cheerfully.

Are you hurt? she asked. She was small and blond and very angry-looking.

Breakfast ready? he wanted to know.

She looked like she might be going to cry, her face crumpled a little and her chin quivering. Damn you, she said. Won’t nothin do till you’ve killed yourself, is they? Why you ain’t dead afore now is a mystery to me and God too I reckon, as I don’t see why He’d have any call to look out after the likes of you any more than … she broke off suddenly and looked at the boy, standing there holding the coat in his arms and still dripping water. What about him, she pointed. Your helper. He hurt?

The boy looked down at himself, soggy and mud-splattered, seeds and burrs collected on his waterdark jeans like some rare botanical garden being cultivated there, at his rubber kneeboots with twigs and weeds sticking out of them, feeling the blisters they’d worn and the cords in his ankles pulled from walking in them. One sock was completely off and scrunched down somewhere in the toe of the boot. I ain’t no helper, he said. I jest found him.

He shot a glance up at the man. He was grinning. Don’t let him fool you, he said. He was drivin. But he ain’t hurt I don’t reckon. I ain’t neither, my leg is jest wore out fightin that dashboard.

Your head’s wore out is what’s wore out, she said. You get out of them clothes. Here, set down. She guided him to a sofa and began trying to undo the laces of his shoes.

The boy stood about uneasily, wondering what he was supposed to do. She got the man’s shoes off and his socks. Now she was unfastening his belt. He just sat there, quiet and unresisting, as if engaged in some deep speculation. She kept saying Damn you, damn you, in a tone of despair and solicitude at once.

She was pulling his trousers off. The boy began to look about him wildly.

What are you doin? the man said in mock indignity.

You raise up, damn you!

Here! he said. I’m in no shape for this kind of carryin-on.

Marion Sylder, I’m not puttin up with your foolishness, you hear me? Now you get out of them britches and get out of them now and quick. God rest your poor mother I don’t know why she ain’t dead either puttin up with you long as she did … lift your feet. You … here, wait. I’ll get you some shoes too. She disappeared through a door and the man winked hugely at him, sitting there with his trousers in a pile under his feet.

She came back and dumped some clothes into his lap—then she saw the great bruise on the side of his calf, livid in hues of red and purple against the bare white of his naked legs. She knelt and touched it, whimpering softly. She went out again and returned with a basin of water and a cloth and bathed it carefully, the man crying out from time to time in simulated anguish. But she didn’t cuss him any more. When she finished she turned to the boy. What about you? she said.