The Heavenly Table

64

EULA WAS IN the kitchen baking an apple pie, and Ellsworth was sitting on the porch smoking his pipe, when Sykes, the constable from Pike County who had dragged him off to jail over the cattle scam, drove into the yard. The farmer raised up in his rocker. Whenever the law shows up at your door uninvited, it can’t be good; and his immediate thought was that Eddie was in trouble. “Shit,” he muttered to himself, hoping Eula hadn’t heard the car pull in. Ever since those boys had left the other day, she had been unusually quiet, and whenever she did say anything, she was either wondering again why Eddie hadn’t written them a letter yet, or recalling another one of the compliments Junior had paid her. Ellsworth hurried toward the car before the lawman could get out. He noticed that an old man with a long beard sat in the backseat, just like he himself had last fall.

To his surprise, Sykes told him that they’d caught the man who took his money last year. “Tried to pull the same thing on ol’ Stanley Starling over in Beaver,” he said, “but he was a little sharper than you were. Had him tied up and waiting on us when we got there. You don’t ever want to mess with Stanley. They say he could read and write before he was even born. Well, anyway, we got the bastard, but he done spent your money, I’m afraid. Calls himself Oren Malloy, but I’d bet a dollar that’s not his real name.” Then he sniffed the air. “Is that apple pie I smell?”

“Might be,” Ellsworth said.

“Apple’s always been one of my favorites,” Sykes said, glancing toward the house.

Ellsworth ignored the hint, recalling that when he was locked up in the constable’s jail, on false charges no less, he had been given nothing to eat all that miserable day but a dab of cold okra spooned up from a common pot that a trustee carried along the row of cells. Instead, he asked in a low voice if by any chance he’d seen his son in Waverly. “Name’s Eddie. I heard a while back he might be runnin’ around down there with some young girl named Spit something or other and an old man plays a harp.”

“Lord Christ,” Sykes said, “is that your boy? The one that was with ye when I had ye in the jail last year?”

Ellsworth nodded. “Only got the one.”

“Why, he surely has changed a bunch since then,” the sheriff said. “I didn’t even recognize him.”

“So you have seen him?”

“Oh, yeah. In fact, I took him and the old man down to the Ohio River the other day and dropped ’em off by the bridge. The girl slipped away before I could catch her, or I’d have got rid of her ass, too. That man, that’s Johnny Marks you’re talkin’ about. A damn drunk if ever there was one. What in the world’s your boy doin’ hanging around with him?”

“I don’t know. He just took off one day, never said a word to his poor mother or me, either one.”

“Well,” Sykes said, “I been in this business long enough to know that people sometimes do things that can’t be explained.”

“What’d he do?” Ellsworth said.

“Your boy? Oh, nothing much. Mostly, the store owners got to complaining about the racket they was making downtown. Johnny’s always thought of himself as a musician, but he couldn’t play a tune if his life depended on it. Far as your boy goes, he’s pretty much got a tin ear, too, though he’s not a bad dancer when he gets juiced up a little. Anyway, I hauled ’em off to give ’em a fresh start, so to speak. Just like I’m doing with this one here,” he said, hooking a thumb at the passenger in the back. “Only I’m a-takin’ this one to Meade. Just between you and me, I got to scatter ’em out a little bit, so my associates don’t get wise to it. But, heck, I can’t afford to feed every no-account that shows up in Pike County. That’s the reason I be up this way.”

“He a music man, too?” Ellsworth asked, taking another look at the man in the backseat.

“No, I caught him in Warren Gaston’s lumberyard after closing. Had the gall to tell me he was just following a bird that flew through there, but I figure it was more like he was snoopin’ around for something to stick in his pocket. Can’t hardly blame him, though. If I was in his shape, I’d probably take up stealing, too. Hell, he don’t even own a pair of shoes.”

“A bird?” Ellsworth said. He stepped a little closer, saw that the old man was clothed in what appeared to be a robe. He had a far-off look in his eyes, and was picking something out of his beard.

“Yep. That’s what he pointed to when I came up behind him, anyway. I called his bluff, though.”

“What’d ye mean?”

“I shot that thing so full of holes there weren’t enough feathers left to fill a thimble.”

“What kind of bird?”

“Oh, it was just a little white one. I got to say I never saw one like it before.”

“You mean like that one there?” Ellsworth said, nodding at a small ivory-colored bird that had just landed on the hood of the automobile.

Sykes sat silent for a minute, chewing his bottom lip, watching the bird preen itself. “That sure looks like it, but…but there’s no way in hell that’s the same one. Can’t be.” He mumbled something else that Ellsworth couldn’t hear, then pulled his service revolver from his holster and leaned out over the car door. He squinted and aimed carefully, his mouth shut tight in a determined grimace, then popped off two rounds fast. The bird burst into nothingness, leaving only a tiny splatter of shit on the hood ornament, and a single feather floating through the air. Sykes looked back at his prisoner and grinned. “I hope that wasn’t another one of your buddies,” he said, but the old man just kept on calmly combing his fingers through his beard.

Right after that, the constable left, and Ellsworth walked back to the porch, sat down heavily in his rocker. Eula, who had heard the car pull up and was standing inside the parlor watching, came out and said, “What in the world was that all about?”

“He stopped to tell me they caught the man who stole our money.”

“Did he give you any of it back?”

“Nope. It’s gone for good.”

“I figured as much. Why’d he shoot that bird?”

“I don’t know,” Ellsworth said, shaking his head. “Crazy, I guess. Claimed it and that ol’ boy in the backseat were going around stealing stuff. Something like that anyway.”

“That don’t make no sense. A bird?”

“Like I said, I think he’s crazy.”

“So that’s all he had to say?”

“That was it,” Ellsworth said, and she turned and went back into the house. Jesus, he didn’t know how much longer he could hide the truth about their son, or even why he still felt the need to do it. Each lie begat another, and the only purpose they served was to postpone the inevitable, because sooner or later it was all going to come out. He should have been straight with her from the beginning, told her that Eddie wasn’t in the military the same day he’d found out himself. Now, however, thanks to Sykes, telling her would be twice as hard. A public nuisance dumped out along the Ohio River with some old drunk who sounded a lot like Uncle Peanut! No, he couldn’t do it, not today anyway. Maybe tomorrow, he told himself, after breakfast. But then, just as Eula stepped out on the porch and handed him a piece of pie on a plate, he looked up to see a bird, the color of new snow, fly from one of the oak trees in the front yard. He watched in amazement as it headed east along the road toward Meade, the same route the constable had taken, and suddenly, for a short time anyway, all the little worries and doubts and fears that ruled his life melted away, seemed to take flight along with the bird. “Sit down,” he said to Eula. “There’s something I need to tell ye.”