The Heavenly Table

9

THE JEWETTS WERE working frantically to finish clearing off the swamp before the offer of the chicken bonus expired. Just that morning, Tardweller had stopped by to remind them they had only two days left. They actually had three, but he was a little pissed off by the progress they had made. He figured if any of them argued about it, he’d just tell them the deal was off. A few hens weren’t anything to him, but he’d bet a couple of his hunting buddies fifty dollars each that they’d never get done in time. Still, no matter how it turned out, he’d definitely gotten his money’s worth out of these idiots. Regular men would have charged him ten times as much and taken twice as long for the work they were doing. Sitting in his canopied buggy, he glanced at Pearl out of the corner of his eye, then casually mentioned that he was on his way to Farleigh to get more ice for his wife and daughter. “Be glad when it cools off some,” he said. “I can’t hardly keep up with ’em, they go through it so fast.”

The Major waited on the old man to say something, but Pearl just slowly nodded. Though even breathing the thick, humid air required extra effort, he hardly broke a sweat anymore. It was as if he were drying up and turning into worm dust himself. He stood beside the buggy and waited to be dismissed while Tardweller watched Cob and Chimney drag some brush to the edge of the clearing. For several minutes, the only sounds to be heard were the steady chunk, chunk, chunk of Cane’s ax against a soft pine, and the airy swish of the paper fan the Major was waving at his fat face. “By God,” he finally said to Pearl, “even if ye don’t win them hens, you sure give it a good try.” Then he drove off laughing.

That afternoon, Pearl’s stomach started acting up and he threw down his ax and hurried behind a bush, his hands fumbling with the knot he had tied in his rope belt. Ever since they’d started eating on that sick hog, he’d been prone to the squirts. He was squatted down with his pants around his knees when he suddenly emitted a high-pitched cry and toppled forward on his face. His sons, scattered across the clearing, all turned and looked at one another. Cob began to run in Pearl’s direction. “Keep an eye out,” Cane yelled. “He probably been bit.” The rotting carcasses of at least twenty rattlers and cottonmouths they had killed over the last several weeks hung from the lower branches of a huge oak standing alone in the middle of the hacked acres. Tardweller had ordered them not to touch the tree because it held, as he put it, “sentimental value,” and the brothers had whiled away hours speculating on what he might mean, Cane and Chimney finally agreeing that under that blue shade was probably where the man had gotten his first piece of ass. Such a spot, they figured, would be memorable to anyone, even that arrogant skinflint. Cob stopped and grabbed the rusty saber, then took off again. By that time, the others were only a few feet behind him.

After looking about for a snake, they turned Pearl over and searched for a bite mark, but found no sign of one. Although his eyes were open, they were fixed blankly on something that only he could see. A thin web of spittle hung from his chin whiskers to his Adam’s apple. Cob scratched his head and said, “I think he’s takin’ a nap.” He and Cane were on their knees on either side of the old man.

“No, he’s sick,” Chimney said. “I saw him puke up his biscuit this morning.” He stepped back a couple of feet, started trying to squeeze a splinter out of the palm of his hand.

Cane leaned over and put his ear against Pearl’s chest. He listened for a minute, then raised up. “Jesus,” he said. He grabbed hold of the old man’s bony shoulders and shook him.

“What ye doin’?” Chimney asked.

“Pap?” Cane said. “Hey, Pap.” He shook him again, but not so hard this time.

“Well?”

“I think his ol’ heart’s give out.”

“No way,” Chimney said. “Hell, I couldn’t keep up with him five minutes ago.”

“He sleeps pretty hard sometimes,” Cob said, gently smoothing his hand over Pearl’s forehead. “Poor ol’ Pap, he’s just tired, is all.”

“No,” Cane said, “that’s not it.” He turned and looked at Chimney. “I hate to say it, but I think he’s gone.”

Cob’s brow wrinkled and his hand moved down to pick a burr off Pearl’s shirt. For a moment, his brothers wondered if he understood, but then he said, as casually as if he were talking about the weather, “Well, that makes sense, I reckon. Remember what he said this morning?”

“No,” Cane said, “I don’t recall.”

“He said he could see someone a-settin’ a plate out for him. I just thought he was goin’ on about them ghosts again, but I bet he was talkin’ about the heavenly table, wasn’t he?”

“Shit, that don’t mean nothin’,” Chimney said. “That’s all he ever talked about.”

“Yeah, but still…”

Nothing else was said for several minutes, and Cane pushed Pearl’s muddy brown eyes closed with his thumbs, his living hands framing the wasted face for a moment like a picture hanging on a wall. Then he raised up and looked about the clearing. To his disgust, he found himself thinking that there was no way they would ever finish in time to get the chicken bonus now. The least he could have done was speak up this morning when Tardweller lied through his goddamn teeth about how many days they had left. That would have been something anyway, taking up for the old feller one last time. He fought down a sick feeling rising in his throat and said quietly to Cob, “Help me get his pants back up.”

As he stood watching, Chimney spat on his hands, then ran them through his hair. He wondered what Penelope was doing, hating her more than ever just then. From what he had seen those weeks he had worked in the barn, all she ever did was ride around in her college beau’s automobile and drink lemonade on the front porch. Well, whatever it was, she sure as hell wasn’t standing soaked with sweat in a field staring down at a dark, bloody lump behind her father’s feet, green bottle flies already buzzing around it. An anxious feeling swept over him just then, a wild desire to take off running and never look back, and he turned about in a circle several times before he could get settled down. Goddamn, he thought, just takin’ a shit. What a lousy way to go. Snake bit would have been a hundred times better.

Cob finished tying the belt and looked up at the sky. Somewhere out there beyond that blue expanse was the new country his father would soon be entering, one blessed with goodness and cool breezes and an everlasting repast. He smiled. There was nothing to be sad about. As he had heard Pearl say many times since his meeting with the hermit, a certain amount of suffering was called for to gain entry into paradise, and now that trial was over with for him. “Just think,” Cob said. “The heavenly table. He’s got it made now, don’t he?”

“He sure does,” said Chimney. “Shame we couldn’t have hitched a ride with him. Hell, they probably already fittin’ him for his feed bag.”

“This ain’t the time to be jokin’ around,” Cane told him.

“Maybe not,” Chimney said, “but I think Cob’s right. That poor old sonofabitch lying there just got the only thing he’s wanted for years. Christ, we should be happy for him.”

Although Cane couldn’t dispute the logic in his brother’s argument, such an attitude was still, to his way of thinking, a little too swift and coldhearted for the occasion. It was only right that a tear or two be shed, or, at the very least, some kind words spoken, before you started poking fun at someone’s passing. He stood up and walked over to the water bucket to retrieve his shirt. As he did so, he heard Cob say, “Well, I know I am. Heck, he’ll be eatin’ steaks big around as wagon wheels, and tender as…as…Oh, shoot, how tender was them steaks again, Chimney?”

“Tender as a young girl’s kitty-cat.”

“An’ the biscuits? What was it you said about them?”

“Oh, they’ll be hot and fluffy as—”

“Enough,” Cane said. He looked toward the shack on the other side of the cotton field. “You gather up the tools and me and Cob will carry him back to the house.”

“Where we gonna bury him?”

“Back there by the hog pen,” Cane said, as he finished buttoning his shirt. “At least that way he’ll have some company.”