Hill Girl

Six

By the time we had the wood thrown off, Sam was back from his cache. He stopped behind the corn crib, where we could see him but he couldn’t be seen from the house, and motioned to us.

“I didn’t want to tote it across to you there in the open,” he said when we got there, and he nodded toward the house, where Angelina was. I thought of the contemptuous way she had said, “Moonshiner!” and felt a little sorry for him. He wasn’t fooling that girl any.

“One of you boys can tote it out in your game pocket.”

“Sure,” Lee said. He paid Sam for it. “But let’s go inside here and have a snort. How about it, Sam?”

Sam hesitated slightly, and then he nodded. We climbed through the small door into the crib and closed it after us again. I wondered what all the secrecy was about. What was Angelina supposed to think we were doing down here? Playing a three-handed game of bridge?

The crib was built of split logs with the flat sides inside and it was cool and dim and dusty in there, with a narrow shaft of sunlight slanting in here and there from the west side between the logs. The unhusked corn was piled high toward the back in a steep slope and there was a little cleared space by the door. We hunkered down there with our backs against the sloping wall of corn and Lee twisted loose the fruit-jar lid. He held it out to Sam.

“Go ahead,” Sam said politely.

“The first today,” Lee said and took a big swallow, holding the wide-mouthed jar with both hands. He made a shuddering face and expelled his breath in a long “Whoooof!”

I took a drink, not wanting it and disliking the breath-catching and slightly gagging smell of it in the wide mouth of the jar, but obliged to abide by the rules governing these rites. If three men have a bottle, all three must drink. It was good, as moonshine goes, but I just couldn’t see the necessity for it at this time of day, out in the country like this on a hunting trip.

Sam tilted it back and took a long drink without changing expression. He might have been drinking water. Lee hurriedly gulped another and passed the jar to me again.

“You get many birds?” Sam asked.

“About a dozen,” Lee said. “Old Big-and-Ugly here was blowin’ holes in the air and I had to get ‘em for him.”

Sam nodded and smiled a little self-consciously at me. “Well, ev’body has an off day now an’ then.”

“Have another jolt,” Lee said

“Well, I don’t know,” Sam said slowly. Then he picked up the ax. “Jest one. Then I got to unhitch the mules.”

“Through hauling wood for the day?” Lee asked in surprise. It was only about three-thirty.

“Well, I had thought I might get in another load, but I guess not. Might put me kinda late with the chores. Reckon I’ll unhitch.”

I reckon you will too, I thought. Unhitch and stick around. You’re not going back down there in the bottom and leave two potential drunks wallowing around in your corn crib with a quart of moonshine and that girl wandering around loose. You might as well go off and leave an untended bonfire in a gasoline refinery. I’ll bet you’ll be a happy man the day she’s married and some other poor bastard can watch her.

I could feel the two drinks warming me and I was conscious of the old illusion that about two drinks always give you of seeing everything more clearly. And the thing I saw more clearly than anything else was that I’d better start working on Lee to get him out of here before he got too much. You never could tell what it was going to do to him.

“We’d better get started back,” I said. “It’s a long way out to the car.”

“Plenty of time. Keep your shirt on,” he replied with a vague irritation.

Sam got up and let himself out to attend to the team. He gave us a disturbed look as he left. He didn’t like it a bit. It was plain on his face in spite of the way he tried to cover it up. And I could see his reasons. If you’re making and selling booze in a dry county, there’s no surer way of getting yourself in jail than by letting your customers drink it on the premises and get a load on to advertise where they got it. And Sam had a lot of strict, old-fashioned family virtues. He didn’t think his home was any place for people to get drunk, but he didn’t like to say anything. After all, Lee was a good customer. And, too, the code of hospitality ingrained in men like Sam would never permit him to ask anyone to leave his place. Backwoods people just weren’t like that. They might rip your belly open if anything unpleasant started, but they couldn’t ask you to leave.

“You’re mashing those birds in your pocket,” I said. Lee was lying back on the corn with the quail in the game pocket under him.

“The hell with the birds. The world is full of birds.”

“And I’d better point out another thing. We’re wearing out our welcome around here. Fast. Sam makes whisky, but he’s not running a bar. We’d better get going.”

“I paid him for the rotgut, didn’t I? Do I have to ask him where I can drink it?” His face was becoming redder and I could see the stuff working on him.

I didn’t say anything.

“Did you ever see such a shape in your life?” he asked.

“Sam? I guess he’s not my type.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake! You and your goddamned stale jokes. You know who I mean.”

“O.K.,” I said, “I know who you mean.”

“I wonder if she really wants it that bad. Or if she’s just dumb.”

“Why don’t you ask Sam? If you’ll just talk a little louder he can hear you.”

“Look,” he said, setting down the jar and staring at me with disgust. “I’m getting a little sick of hearing about Sam. The sneaky bastard. Why doesn’t he get on with his work and quit spying around here?”

It was getting bad. And I knew there wasn’t anything I could do about it. It wasn’t his getting ugly, or the fact that he might start trouble with Harley by trying to pick a fight or cursing him or something, that worried me. Sam would probably just charge that off to a bad drunk who couldn’t handle his liquor. At least, I hoped he would. But the thing that scared me was Lee’s sitting here getting drunker and drunker with that girl inflaming his mind. I’d seen drunks with something on their minds before. Pretty soon, about the time everything else began to close down for him, there’d be nothing left but the girl.

It would be easy to reach over and take the stuff away from him and throw it out the door. They didn’t call me Mack Truck for nothing. I thought of doing it and wondered why I didn’t, but deep down inside I knew why. It was the thought of facing his ridicule when he sobered up and I had to explain why I’d done it. It would look so silly and old-womanish then. It’s funny, I thought, how you’re afraid of a lot of things all your life, but the thing you always fear most is ridicule.

In a little while we heard Sam going by outside and then drawing water for the mules.

“Hey, Sam,” Lee called. There was no answer. He shouted even louder. “Sam! Come in here!”

He turned and stared intently at me as though trying to fix me in his mind. He frowned and weaved slightly from side to side and you could see he was having trouble bringing me into focus. The stuff was working on him rapidly. He’d only had about six drinks.

“Jesus, but you’re a homely bastard. Where’d you ever get a face like that?”

Maybe it would be easier if I got a little edge on myself, I thought. I reached for the jar and took a drink.

“You ought to take that face out somewhere and bury it. You look like a gorilla. Does it hurt?”

“This is what is known as a good, clean, wholesome face,” I said. “I’m a good, clean, wholesome American youth.”

“You’re a good, clean, wholesome sonofabitch. Always worryin’ about something. What’re you worryin’ about now, Grandma?”

“All right,” I said. “I’m always worrying about something.”

“But right now. What’re you worryin’ about right now?”

“Nothing.”

“Must be something. You wouldn’t be complete without that face and something to worry about.”

I didn’t say anything. He kept on staring at me owlishly, with that scowl of concentration screwing up his face.

“Why don’t you worry some more about Titsy out there? Whether she’s goin’ to throw one of ‘em right out through that dress sometime? Or whether she’s goin’ to get what she’s looking for?”

I can see why you get in so many fights, I thought. I can just guess how far you get with that stuff with somebody who doesn’t love you for what you are when you’re all there.

‘Did you ever see anything like it?” he asked. Every time he stopped talking for a minute and then started in again, it was about the same thing.

“Why don’t you and Sam take the guns and go off hunting for a while?”

I didn’t say anything, so he yelled for Sam again. “Hey, Sam!”

In a minute the door opened and Sam looked in. There was still that uneasiness in his black eyes.

“Sam, you old devil, where you been?” Lee shouted at him. “Come on in and have a drink.”

Sam climbed in and squatted down on his heels by the door. Lee kept saying, “You old devil,” and “You old bastard,” and holding out the fruit jar. Sam tried to give me one of those knowing and indulgent smiles out of the side of his eyes, the look that two sober people always have between them for a noisy drunk, but it was pretty weak and strained.

“Sam, old boy, old boy, I want to show you the best damn shotgun in the United States,” Lee said noisily, reaching back on the pile of corn to where he’d thrown the gun. It wasn’t until that moment that I remembered that he hadn’t unloaded it.

“Yeah, that’s a right nice gun, Lee,” Sam said politely.

“Right nice! I hope to tell you it’s a right nice gun. You can’t miss with it. Ask old Plug-Ugly here how many shots I missed with it today. Go on, ask him.”

“Yeah,” Sam said dutifully. “I shore wisht I could git me one like it. It’s right smart of a gun.”

“Take it outside and feel the balance of it. Take a shot at something. It’s loaded. Say, I’ll tell you what. Look, you old boar, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you go out and locate a covey and try a couple of shots? Gable here’ll go with you. I want you to try it out. I’ll just stay here and catch a couple of winks while you’re gone.”

Sam shook his head regretfully. “I wisht I could, Lee. But it’s gettin’ close to feedin’ time.”

“Oh, what the hell. It’s not late. Go ahead.”

“No, but I wisht I could. Mebbe some other time.”

Lee’s slightly glassy eyes fastened on his face with a hard stare. “What’s the matter, you snoopy bastard? You afraid to?”

Sam looked at me questioningly and then back to Lee, as though he couldn’t make it out. Before I could do anything or say a word, Lee cut loose again.

“Oh, I know what you’re up to. You been snoopin’ around here the last hour, afraid I might get next to that little bitch. Well, you’re not so goddamned smart, mister. She’s gettin’ plenty of it from somebody, and don’t you forget it.”

Sam still had the shotgun in his hands. I was afraid to make a sudden move and I knew that any move I made would be too late to do any good anyway. I was watching his eyes and I saw the hot, crazy urgency flooding into them and I could feel the skin on the back of my neck tighten up until it hurt, the way it does when you have a hard chill and it seems like every hair is stabbing you. It was just the way it is when you’re skating over deep water when the ice is thin and you hear it start to rumble under you and you try to lift your weight off your feet by sheer will and hold your breath and pray, “Don’t let it break. Don’t let it break.”

He raised the gun slowly and I could hear the ice breaking under all of us, but he was just setting it down in the corner, and he turned his face toward me and the murder was going out of his eyes and there was something hurt in them, a naked and shameful pain that he couldn’t hide.

“Sam,” I said quietly, and put a hand on his arm. “Come outside a minute.”

He nodded dumbly and we went out the small door, leaving Lee cursing behind us. Just before I went out I picked up the gun and took out the two shells and put them in my pocket and took the ones he had in his coat.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I’m sorry as hell,” I said as we slowly walked away from the little building, and I was conscious of how futile it was to try to apologize for something like that.

He was silent for a minute and I was afraid he wasn’t going to answer. Then he said, “It’s all right, Bob. It don’t mean nothin’. He’s just drunk.”

There was still that awful hurt in his eyes and his hands were shaking and I knew he was thinking now of how near he had been to killing a man.

“I’ll try to get him away from here. But the best idea is to let him take a few more and he’ll pass out.”

“He oughtn’t to never drink, Bob.”

“I know.”

“He jest can’t handle it.”

“I know.”

“Something awful is goin’ to happen to that boy someday.” He said it quietly and there was regret in his voice.

“I know it, Sam.” It was the first time I had ever admitted knowing it, even to myself. I looked down at the ground and aimlessly pushed a piece of oak bark around with the toe of my boot.

“You’ll tell him for me, won’t you, that I ain’t goin’ to sell him no more?”

“I’ll tell him.”

“He oughtn’t to have no more, ever. An’ I’d rather he didn’t come back, nohow.”

I didn’t say anything and he stood there for a moment, a little embarrassed, and then he said something about feeding and started off. As I stood there watching him I was thinking that there was a lot of man in Sam. If there hadn’t been I would have had a brother over there in the corn crib with his guts blown all over seventy bushels of corn.

“Oh, Sam!” I called after him. “I know it’s asking a lot, but would you give us a lift out to the highway, where the car is? When he passes out, I mean. I can’t carry him.”

“Well, I’d do it for you, Bob,” he said hesitantly, “but my car ain’t here. One of the Rucker boys carried Mama and the two little girls to town in it. He left his car here, but it’s jest one of them stripdowns. It’ll only take two.”

I went back to the corn crib and Lee was still sitting there where we had left him. He had the dead, vacant stare of the very drunk.

“Well,” he said. “It’s my handsome brother.” He said “hansshm,” so I guessed that’s what he meant. He was back on my beauty again.

“You’ve really played hell this time,” I told him.

“Jeesus, but you’re a homely bastard.”

It’s like being on a merry-go-round, I thought.

“Sam can’t take us out to the car. His car’s not here. All he’s got is some kid’s stripdown.”

“I’ll say she’s stripped down.”

It wasn’t any use. We were just going to keep on playing the same records over and over.

“Let’s worry about something.”

“Go to hell,” I said.

I thought about this morning when everything was so bright and fresh and cold and old Mike was holding firm close over the birds, and Lee was Lee and everything was perfect. Oh, hell, I thought.

“Why don’t you have a drink?” I asked. If he’d only go on and pass out.

“You want to get me drunk so you can get it.”

It’s funny, I thought, how they can fix their minds on only one thing.

He took another drink, though. When he put down the jar, which was nearly empty now, it fell over and the rest of the moonshine ran through a crack in the floor He lay back on the corn after a while and closed his eyes

“Horses,” he muttered.

I sat down and took out a cigarette. “What about horses?”

I don’t know whether he heard me or not. He seemed to be asleep, but he muttered stupidly now and then “Sharon liked the horses. Horsh is a noble anim’l.”

I sat there moodily smoking the cigarette, being very careful not to start a fire in the corn.

“Poor Sharon. Always hav’n arms twisted. Twists h’r arms.”

“Who does? The horse?” Certainly a brilliant conversation, I thought.

“No.”

He didn’t say anything more and I sat there and watched him for five minutes and he didn’t move. It was sooner than I had expected. He usually didn’t pass out so quickly. But then, I thought, it hasn’t been much over an hour and a half, but he’s drunk nearly a quart of the stuff.

I went outside and found Sam.

“He’s gone to sleep,” I said. “Passed out.”

He nodded.

“I’m going out to the highway and get the car. I’ll come back and pick him up. “

“That’s a long ways,” he said thoughtfully.

“Two or three miles.”

He didn’t say anything else, but walked over toward the corn crib. I went with him, and he opened the door and looked in at Lee, who was sleeping noisily, with his mouth open. There was something queer about it, but I couldn’t quite place it. He hadn’t moved.

“I’ll drive you out to your car, Bob,” Sam offered. “It’s too fur to walk.”

“That’s fine, Sam,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

He pushed the stripdown out of the garage and cranked it. I climbed up with him and we started down the lane. As we went out through the wire gate I saw Angelina come out of the house with a milk bucket.

The car was just a chassis with an old seat cushion thrown on top of the gasoline tank. It was an old Ford, and there weren’t any fenders on it or any hood, just the bare essentials. I could see what Sam had meant by not being able to haul a passed-out drunk. It was all we could do to stay on it ourselves.

I don’t know why it didn’t hit me sooner. Maybe I just wasn’t up on my toes mentally, after the experiences of the afternoon. Anyway, it wasn’t until we had reached the Buick and Sam had turned around and started back that this awful suspicion began to creep up on me. He had passed out too quickly and too easily.

I cursed the cunning of a drunk with only one thing on his mind. He’d figured that maybe Sam would do just what he had, drive me out to the car and leave him alone there on the place with that girl. Then I knew what it was that had been queer about the way he looked. He’d been lying there with his head over on one side, asleep with his mouth open. And it had been the first time I’d ever seen a drunk sleeping that way without saliva drooling out the corner of his mouth.

The car was doing fifty by the time I shifted out of second and I passed Sam in the old stripdown as if he had a broken axle. I made the sharp, cutback turn off the highway where Sam’s road came in with a long screaming slide and a cloud of dust.

As I blasted through the pines up there on the ridge in that narrow pair of ruts I was praying I wouldn’t meet anybody. If I did, it would be plain murder. The road was clear all the way.

Just before I hit Sam’s place I pressed the horn as hard as I could. As I shot through the gate and slid to a stop in front of the house I got a quick flash of the girl, running to the house from the direction of the corn crib.

I ran past the house without even looking toward her and headed for the crib. As I rounded the corner of it I almost kicked over the bucket of milk she’d left there right in the path. The damned fool, I thought. The damned, stupid, insane little slut. The door was closed, but I could hear Lee moving around inside and cursing.

“Come back here! Come back!” he was yelling at the top of his voice.

I grabbed up the milk and ran toward the house and burst right into the kitchen. She was there on the other side of the oilcloth-covered table, leaning against it, with her hands gripping the edge, breathing hard and glaring at me.

“Here, you little fool!” I said. “And for Christ’s sake pin up that dress or put on another one before Sam sees you. Quick!”

“You go to hell!” she spat at me. Her eyes were hot and smoky and her hair was tangled and there was a long tear right down the front of that tight, sleazy dress, almost to her belly.

I got back to the corn crib just as I heard the Ford pulling up in the lane. Lee had the door open and was weaving around, trying to climb out. I heard Sam stopping in front of the house and I could tell from the way he sounded that he was in a hurry too.

I pushed Lee back inside, not being gentle about it, just shoving him back through the door like a bundle of old rags.

“Where is she? Where is that juicy little bitch? Tell her to come back here!” he kept saying.

I could hear Sam coming around the house, walking fast, and there wasn’t anything else to do or any time to lose. I hit him. I slugged him hard on the side of the jaw and he folded up at the base of the pile of corn. I stretched him out the way he had been when we left.

Sam opened the door and looked in.

“Maybe I better help you with him, Bob,” he said after a hard look at Lee. Whatever he had been thinking, he was apparently satisfied by the sight of him lying there just as he had been. I felt a little weak.

We carried him out and put him in the car and he never stirred a muscle. I went back and got the guns and whistled for Mike and then just stalled a minute or two. I wasn’t afraid Lee would come out of it any time soon.

I wanted to keep Sam out there for a few minutes so he wouldn’t get in the house and see that damned girl before she changed her dress and got that wild look out of her eyes. We talked there at the car for several minutes, but I have no idea what we talked about. I didn’t hear a word.

I stopped where the road ran close to the little creek just before we got back on the highway and got a little water in my hat and washed Lee’s face with. it. He didn’t come around for five minutes and when he did he was still limp and white. I helped him out of the car and he was sick.

I pulled the birds out of the game pocket of his coat and they were mashed and beginning to smell. There were nine of them and I threw them out on the ground. Mike looked at me questioningly and we both looked at the birds and I felt like hell.

Big thunderheads were piling up in the west when we got out on the highway and the sun was just going down behind them. It looked as if it might rain in the night. Neither of us said anything as I drove home in the dusk.