The Orchard Keeper(43)

Well, I turned to him kind of surprised-like and I said, Why shore. A feller’s got to get home sometime, and the best way he can. How come you to ast me that?

He jest looked at me for a minute, then he kind of grinned and he said, Cain’t you hear that wampus cat?

Why, I said, shore I hear it. Anybody’t wadn’t deaf could hear that, I reckon.

Well, he kind of figured he had me then so he says, Ain’t you skeered of painters, Uncle Ather?

Why shore, I says. Anybody ceptin a fool’d be skeered of one, a full-growed one leastways.

Then I never said nothin, jest went to the dope box and got me a dope and commenced drinkin it and lookin at my watch ever oncet in a while. I could see he was plenty puzzled and he tried to slip a grin to the rest of the fellers there once or twicet cept they wadn’t grinnin and I reckon was more puzzleder’n he was. So he never said nothin neither, but after a while they’s a young feller there, he piped up and ast me if that wadn’t a full-growed one that was raisin all that hell out there. Well, about that time it come again, hollerin, and I looked at him and I said, They Lord God, son, I don’t know what you’d do if a growed one was to squall. Why that ain’t nothin there. But then course they ain’t painters round like they used to be. Back fifty, sixty years ago they’d sing out back and forth crost these mountains all night of a summer till you got to where you couldn’t sleep lessen you did hear em. But it takes a big old tom painter to set up a fuss. That there ain’t nothin. I told him that and about that time shore enough that owl let out another screech couldn’t of been a hundred yards off and I could see the hackles come up on his neck and on Bob Kirby’s too.

I finished my dope and set it down and made like I was fixin to leave then and Kirby, he says, stit grinnin kind of, You mean, Uncle Ather, that you can tell one painter from anothern by its squall?

Well, I said, I don’t reckon I can so good any more. He grinned right big at that.

But, I says, since I seen this’n t’other night I guess it jest don’t worry me none.

Well, they all jumped up with somethin to ast then, how big it was and all. I was already half out the door, but I figured to give em somethin to think about while they walked home, so I turned to em and I says, Why it ain’t more’n a kitten. It’s right up here in the gap not even dusk-dark t’other night I seen it scoot crost the road. Old Scout was layin there on the concrete. Now he’s fell off some of late but used to be he come a good bit higher’n my knee—to where you jest could straddle him, and weighed better’n a hunderd pound. So I looked around and I seen him there and I jest pointed to him and I said, Why he ain’t a whole lot bigger’n Scout here, and said em a good night and went on.


Down the small panes of glass behind the old man’s chair the sun lowered, casting his head in silhouette and illumining his white hair with a prophetic translucence. A little later he rose and went to the table and lit the lamp.

You boys care for some … here, jest a minute. He excused himself and went flapping off to the kitchen from where issued in a moment sounds of cupboards and glassware. When he came back he was carrying two glasses and a cup, a mason jar of some dark red liquid. Here, he said, handing them each a glass. He unscrewed the lid of the jar and poured their glasses. A heavy and evil-looking potion the color of iodine. Muskydine wine, he said. Bet you-all ain’t never had none.

It beaded black and sinister in the soft lampglow. He settled himself in his rocker and filled his cup, watching them taste it.

Mighty fine, Warn said.

Yessir, said the boy.

They sipped their wine with the solemnity of communicants, troglodytes gathered in some firelit cave. The lamp guttered in a draft of wind and their shadows, ponderous and bearlike upon the wall, weaved in unison.

Uncle Ather, said the boy, was they really painters back then?

Warn’s face, a harlequin mask etched in black and orange by the lamplight, turned to the old man. Tell him about that’n, Uncle Ather, he said. That’n you had.

Uncle Ather had already started. Oh yes, he said, allaying doubt with an upthrust of his chin. Yes, they was, long time back. When I was a young feller, workin on the road crew at that time, I caught one.

Caught one?

Yep. He smiled mysteriously. Shore did. Caught him with my bare hands, and I got the scars to prove it. Here he extended a leathery thumb for inspection. The boy slid from his chair and bent studiously over it.

Right here, the old man said, pointing to a place on the inside just above the web. See?

Yes, he said. The skin was wrinkled like an old purse; in that myriad cross-hatching any line could have been a scar. He sat back down and the old man chuckled throatily.