The Orchard Keeper(32)

Yesm?

Yesm? She looked from him to the man and back. You goin to die standin there I reckon, Yesm. She narrowed her eyes at him. Start shuckin, she said.

What?

The man on the couch giggled. He was pulling on a clean shirt.

Here, she said, go in yonder. She pointed behind her. I’ll get you some clothes in jest a minute.

He started past her with strange sluicing sounds. Empty them boots first, she told him. He stopped. Outside.

He said Yesm again, went to the door and returned, one sock on and one off, leaving odd unmatched tracks on the raw pine flooring.

The door she pointed him through led to a bedroom. There was a fireplace with a coal grate and a faint warmth still issuing from it. He stood in front of it on a small hooked rug for a minute, then softly eased the door to.

Get that blanket, the woman called to him.

He peeled off his wet clothes, piling them on top of the mackinaw which he had laid carefully on the floor, took the rolled blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped himself in it.

He was standing at the window looking out at the gray morning when she came in with the shirt and pants and handed them to him. Then she scooped his things off the floor and went out. He unfolded himself out of the blanket and got into the dry clothes. There was a pair of army socks too and he put these on and sat on the bed, wondering if it was all right to walk on the floor with them. She didn’t bring any shoes though and after a while he ventured out into the front room again. The man was dressed, his head bandaged, and he was sitting with his feet in a pan of water and reading a magazine. He looked up and saw the boy standing there in the drooping shirt and the trousers turned up at the bottoms and gathered at the waist by the expedient of fastening the front buttonhole to a suspender button on the side.

They ain’t much of a fit, are they? the man said.

Nosir.

Marion.

What?

Marion. Sylder. That’s my name, Marion Sylder.

Oh, he said.

Pleased to meet ye.

Yessir.

Well, the man said, get ye a chair.

He pulled up a cane rocker from beside the stove, sat quietly with his hands on his knees. The man leaned back on the sofa, a huge shapeless affair draped with a flower-print cover. Behind him on the wall in an oval frame hung a picture of him and the woman, the wife, peering out upon the room with tentative and uncertain smiles. There were small rugs scattered about the floor, some pieces of furniture—a sideboard, a table and chairs. On a small cabinet in one corner stood a walnut trophy with a small bronze automobile perched on top of it.

You know what was in the car?

The boy looked back at him. Yessir … Marion.

Well, the man said. He returned to his magazine, leafed a page over slowly, looked back at the boy. He grinned. It was good stuff too, he said. Sixty gallons of it.

Then the woman called them to breakfast and he put down the magazine and reached for a towel to dry his feet with. The boy noticed that part of the big toe was missing from the man’s left foot. It was nailless, curious-looking, sort of like a nose. The man eased his slippers on and stood up, supporting himself on the couch. Come on, he said, let’s eat some. And hopped off to the kitchen. The boy followed.

They sat down to a breakfast of eggs and grits, biscuits and pork tenderloin and huge cups of coffee. The coffee was black and bitter and there was no milk or sugar on the table. The boy sipped it slowly, watched the man. The woman didn’t eat with them. She hovered about the edge of the table resupplying eggs and biscuits to their plates, filling their cups. The man didn’t say anything until he had finished except that from time to time he would nudge; a plate toward the boy and frown and grunt, urging him to eat. He finished off with biscuits and dark honey and got up from the table. In a few minutes he was back with coats and boots and handed a set to the boy. Come on, he said, I got somethin to show you you might like. The boy pulled on the coat and stepped into the cavernous brogans and they went out the kitchen door into the new morning, the air clear and cold as springwater, shreds of mist lifting off the mountain above them and light pouring through the gap like a millrace. The man hobbled ahead of him to a smokehouse where he pulled a bent nail from the wood and swung out the door, hinge, hasp, lock, and all, and went in. Come on, he said. The boy followed him into the musty gloom. Hello, gal, the man said. The air was rife and fetid with dog smells. Sounds of snuffling. Thin mewlings from somewhere in the corner. A small hound poked her face around the man’s knee and looked up at him. This here’s Lady, the man said. Lady sniffed at his billowing trousers.

He could see now: a broken lantern swung from a beam, a clutter of tools, a grindstone, an anvil fashioned from a section of rail … The man was squatting in the corner, the hound skirting nervously behind his back, poking her nose under his arm. She got around him and settled in a pile of crokersacks and he could see the puppies then too over the man’s shoulder. They crawled over each other and fell to nursing. Lady blinked her mild hound eyes and gazed at the roof.