The Orchard Keeper(68)

Johnny Romines passed the paper across his tongue and folded it shut. Well, do you reckon it was him? he said.

His daddy you mean? Room for speculatin there too I reckon. Miz Rattner claims that it was and that the boy has gone off to hunt whoever it was put him there. She says it all come to her in a dream—a vision, she called it.

Wonder if she had a vision about him bein wanted in three states, Gifford said.

Mr Eller turned on the constable. No, he said, I doubt she has. I don’t reckon she needs any sech either. She’s a good Christian woman don’t matter who-all she might of been married to and not knowed no better.

The constable looked at the storekeeper.

Or the boy either, Mr Eller added.

Never you mind about the boy, Gifford said. Me and him is due for a nice little talk anyway.

Well, you’ll have to find him first.

Wonder who it was, Johnny Romines said. That put him in there I mean. Reckon it was somebody from around here?

I doubt it was somebody from New York City, the constable said. He turned to Mr Eller. And what about that fancy plate he was supposed to have? In his head from the war.

What about it?

Well, they wadn’t none. How’s she account for that?

I don’t reckon she ever thought to ast about it. She jest never would of doubted or wondered about it in the first place. About whether he had one, if he said he did, or about whether that was him in that dittybag if she’d decided that it was either one. Mr Eller rolled his cheeks and spat soundlessly across the constable’s bow and into a coffeecan. Seems like you ought to tell your sidekick about it though, he said.

Who’s that?

Legwater.

He ain’t my sidekick, Gifford said. And I don’t have to tell nobody nothin cept as I see fit.

Mr Eller studied a passing fly, apparently ruminating on some obscure problem in the dynamics of flight. Well, he said agreeably, I reckon you’re right. Keep him out of mischief anyhow.

Gifford’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. What? What will?

Campin up on the mountain. With his shovel and his winderscreen.

Some coughs went their rounds. A milkcase settled floorward creakily.

Humph, said Gifford, unleaning from the counter with studied ease. He fingered cigarettes deftly from one straining pocket. Then: What’s he doin up there?

Mr Eller waited while the match rocketed across the counter. Then he said: Huntin platymum I reckon. Lessen he’s siftin them ashes for to make soap.


Legwater was on the mountain three days before anyone could get close enough to him to tell him it wasn’t so, that the man never had any platinum in his head and that he was wasting his time, it was all a mistake. The first night he built his fire and was sitting by it with his shotgun leaning against a tree and was sipping coffee from a canteen cup when the hound staggered into the clearing on the far side of the fire and stood with his blind head swinging back and forth like a bear’s, muzzle up to catch what clue the wind might bring.

Ha! cried Legwater, leaping up, the coffee flying. Ha! he said, stepped to the tree and snatched up the shotgun. But before he could get a proper sight the dog was gone again, absorbed quietly into the darkness. Legwater leveled the gun at the night and fired, listened after the compounding echoes of the shot for a long time and then stepped to the fire and got the cup and poured it full from the pot, squatting, the shotgun leaning against his knee. He listened some more, but could make nothing out. He set the pot back on the little circle of stones he had constructed and tried the hot rim of the cup against his lip. The hound did not reappear. When he had finished the coffee he rolled his blankets out, reloaded the empty chamber of the gun and settled for sleep.

Toward early morning he woke, sat up quickly and looked about him. It was still dark and the fire had long since died, still dark and quiet with that silence that seems to be of itself listening, an astral quiet where planets collide soundlessly, beyond the auricular dimension altogether. He listened. Above the black ranks of trees the midsummer sky arched cloudless and coldly starred. He lay back and stared at it and after a while he slept.

When he woke again the sun was up. He was still lying on his back and now in the depthless blue void above him a hawk wheeled. He got to his feet and began to walk around, feeling stiff and poorly rested. He scouted in the woods and came back with a load of dead limbs, snapped them to length under his foot and soon had a fire going and coffee warming. When it had perked he sat blowing at a cupful and shifting it from hand to hand as it got too hot or he found a new mosquito bite to scratch at. There was an army rucksack hanging from the tree near his blankets and from the pocket he took some cold biscuits and ate them. Then he got to work.