The Tin Can Tree

13

Something was wrong at home. James knew it instantly, the moment he stepped out of the pickup carrying his two bags of groceries. There on the porch stood the Potter sisters and Ansel and Mrs Pike, all huddling together, and Mr Pike was a little distance away from them. He was facing toward the road, frowning down at an Indian elephant bell that he held in his hand. When he heard the pickup door slam he looked up and said, 'James.' The light from the setting sun turned his face strange and orange. 'What's wrong?' said James.

'We can't find Simon.'

'Well, where is he?' he asked, and then to cover up the stupidity of that question he said quickly, 'He was here at lunchtime.'

'We thought you might have him with you,' Mr Pike said.

'No.'

They all kept looking at him. Even Ansel. James hoisted his groceries up higher and then said again, 'No. No, I've been running errands all afternoon. All by myself.'

'Well, then,' Mr Pike said. He sighed and turned back to the others, who still waited. Finally he said, 'He's not with James.'

'Maybe he's with Joan,' James offered.

'No. Joan must have gone off somewhere, but after she left Simon was still around. Lou says so.'

James looked over at Mrs Pike. She was dry-eyed and watchful; her arms were folded firmly across her chest.

'When was the last time you noticed him?' he asked her.

'I don't know.'

Ma'am?'

'I don't know,' she said, with her voice slightly raised.

'Oh.'

'We called the boys he plays with,' Mr Pike said, 'And we called the movie-house.'

'Did you ask about buses?'

'No. Why?'

'I'd do that,' said James. He climbed the steps at his end of the porch and set the groceries on Ansel's chair, and then he straightened up and rubbed the muscles of his arms. 'Call the drugstore,' he said. 'Ask them if he's -'

'Well, I went to the drugstore, to see if he'd gone there for a soda. Mary Bennett was on; only been there a half hour or so, but she hadn't seen him.'

'Might have gone earlier,' said James. 'Did you look at the bus schedule?'

No I didn't. What would I want to do that for?'

'Just in case,' James said. 'Who was there before Mary Bennett?'

'Tommy was, but I can't find him. If it weren't for Lou I'd just sit and wait for Simon, but Lou thinks he left with a purpose. Thinks she might have sent him away somehow.'

James looked over at Mrs Pike again. For a minute she stared back at him; then she said, 'You believe he's on some bus.'

'I didn't say that,' said James.

'You think it.'

'Now, Lou,' Mr Pike told her.

'I can tell.'

'Well, it wouldn't hurt to ask,' said James. 'I'd track that Tommy down, if I was you.'

'Oh, now,' Mr Pike said, and accidentally clanged the elephant bell. Everyone jumped. 'Sorry,' he said. For the first time, Ansel lost his blank tense look; he winced, and leaned back limply against the front of the house. Mr Pike said, 'Sorry, Ansel. But where would he take a bus to?

'There's lots of places,' said James.

'Not as many as you'd think,' Ansel said. 'World's shrinking.'

'Hush,' James told him. He jingled his keys thoughtfully. 'Roy, can I use your telephone?'

'What for?'

'Let him,' Mrs Pike said. The Potter sisters stepped closer to her on either side and patted her shoulders, as if she had suddenly had an outburst of some kind. 'You know where it is,' she told James.

'Yes, ma'am.'

He walked toward the Pikes' end of the porch, with everyone's eyes following him. At the door he stopped and said, 'Did he have any money?'

'He gets an allowance,' said Mr Pike. 'I don't know if he saved it.'

'Did he get some this week?'

He was asking this of Mrs Pike, but she just shook her head. 'I don't know,' she said. Finally James turned back again and went on inside.

It was Tommy Jones's mother who answered the telephone. Her voice was breathless, as if she had had to come running from some other part of the house. 'Hello?' she said.

'Mrs Jones, this is James Green. Is Tommy there?'

'No, he's not.'

'Do you know where he is?'

'No. Is this about Simon still?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

They haven't found him?'

'No. Do you think Tommy'll be getting back soon?'

'I really don't, 'she said. 'He's off someplace with his girl. Shall I have him call?'

'No, thank you. Sorry to bother you.'

'It's no bother.'

He hung up and stood thinking a while, and then he went out to the front porch again. In just the short time that the telephone call had taken the colour of the evening had shifted, turning from sunset into twilight. The others were standing where he had left them, still looking in his direction as if their eyes had never moved from the spot where he had disappeared. ‘Tommy's not there,' he said.

'Well, I could have told you that,' Mr Pike said irritably. He swung his arms down, making the bell clang again, and started toward the front yard. Tm going to round up a couple others,' he called back. 'We'll look in all the places where he goes, and ring bells or fire guns if we find him. Want to come, James?'

'I'm not sure that's the way,' James said.

'Only thing I can think of. Mind if I use your truck?'

'Well, wait,' said James. He came down the steps and crossed over to Mr Pike. 'No, I'd like to take the truck and follow up an idea of my own, I think I -'

'When I was a little boy…' Ansel announced, and everyone turned around to look at him. He had recovered from that last clang and was standing erect now, placing the tips of his fingers together. 'When I was a little boy, I had to tell my mother everywhere I went. It was a rule. And I could never go out of hearing range of this old Army bugle, that my father would stand in the doorway and blow at suppertime -'

'If you could come along,' Mr Pike told James, 'and bring a noisemaker of some kind, why, we could start by -'

'I was thinking of Caraway,' James said.

'Caraway?'

'I was thinking that was where he might've gone.'

'Oh, Caraway,’ Mr Pike said impatiently. ‘I been there. No, more likely he went off on some hike or other, and forgot to let us know.’

'Well, I'd like to try Caraway anyhow,' said James.

'But James, that's a waste of-'

'Let him,' said Mrs Pike, and once again the Potter sisters closed in on her and patted her shoulders. 'Hush, hush,' they whispered. James pulled out his billfold and checked his money; there was plenty for gas. He turned to Mr Pike.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I just feel I know where he's at.'

'Well, that's all right,' said Mr Pike. 'Sure wish I could have the loan of your pickup, though.'

'I'll make the trip as fast as I can.'

'Well, sure.' Mr Pike sighed, and then he set off wearily across the yard. He carried the elephant bell upside down, with his fingers poked through the inward-curling teeth of it to hold the clapper silent. When he reached the gravel road he turned back and said, 'Ansel? You feel up to coming along?'

'Not really,' said Ansel. 'I just feel miserable about all this.'

Mr Pike nodded several times and then continued down the road in the direction of the Terry's. 'Poor man,' said Miss Lucy, and then she and Miss Faye began patting Mrs Pike harder than before.

James said, 'Ansel, take in the groceries. And fix yourself something for supper, in case I'm late getting back.'

'Well, all right,' Ansel said.

'I don't expect you want to come with me.'

'No.'

James descended the porch steps. In the distance he could see Mr Pike, far and small already, marching on steadily with his shoulders set. It seemed so clear to James that Simon was in Caraway – where else would he be? that he felt sorry to see Mr Pike going to all this trouble. He wanted to call him back, but he knew there was no use. So he just turned around and said, 'Ansel -'and bumped squarely into Mrs Pike, who was standing right behind him. 'Oh, excuse me,' he said. 'I didn't hear you coming.' She remained silent, with her arms still folded and her head bowed meekly. 'Well, 'he said. 'Ansel, I'm going to call you at the Pikes' number when I get there. To tell you what happens, in case Mrs Pike is going to be over at the Potters'.'

'All right,' said Ansel. 'Does that mean I can stay at the Pikes' until you call?'

'I don't care, for heaven's sake.'

He continued on toward the pickup, and Mrs Pike kept following after him. When he opened the door on the driver's side she opened the other door, and it was only then that he realized she meant to come along. They stood staring at each other for a minute across the expanse of seat; then Mrs Pike lowered her eyes and climbed in, and he did the same. He could see that the others on the porch were just as surprised as he was – they came closer together, and turned to look at each other – but Mrs Pike didn't offer to explain herself. She sat quietly, with her eyes straight ahead and her hands clasped in her lap. Even when he craned his neck around to look out the rear window as he was backing out, she stared ahead. The stoniness of her face gave her a calm, sure look, as sure as James felt inside; she must know where Simon was by instinct.

When they were on the main highway James turned his lights on. Already the opaque white look of early twilight was growing bluer and more transparent, and other cars as they came towards him clicked their own lights on. But he could see around him clearly still: the landmarks of the journey to town slipping by, and then a brief glimpse of Main Street itself before he passed it. It felt funny to keep going straight, instead of turning there. A strange sinking feeling began in his stomach, and he looked into the rear-view mirror and watched the town lights fading away from him. 'Don't worry,' he said suddenly to Mrs Pike, but Mrs Pike wasn't looking worried at all; she only nodded, calmly.

'I'm just waiting,' she told him.

'Oh.'

'I'll take what I get. Whatever I deserve.'

'Yes, ma'am,' James said.

He swerved around a little boy riding a bicycle. Where was Simon at this minute? Maybe swaggering down a street alone, trying to look as if he knew where he was going. Searching for some sign – a boy with a ring in his ear or a woman in a red-plumed hat, someone who would expect him the way he had expected them. James frowned. The clomping of Simon's leather boots seemed louder than the sound of the motor; the fuzz down the back of Simon's neck seemed clearer than the road ahead of him.

'It's been a pretty day,' he said.

'Yes.'

'Where's Joan?'

'I don't know,' said Mrs Pike. She looked out at the road a while, and then she said, 'I sewed a dress today.'

'Oh, did you?'

'Yes.'

'Well, now,' James said. He cleared his throat. 'I always thought a dress would take days to make.'

'Anything happens,' said Mrs Pike, 'it's only my fault. My fault.'

'Well, now,' James said again.

The truck was travelling too fast, he thought. Already the countryside looked like Caraway countryside; not Larksville. In his mind he had added mile upon mile to this trip, stretching the road out long and thin till Caraway might have been in Asia. Yet before they had been on the road half an hour they reached Stevens's Esso Station – the halfway mark – and he braked sharply and turned in. 'Need gas,' he told Mrs Pike. She nodded. The meter said the tank was half full, but stopping this way would slow things down a little.

Mr Stevens himself washed the windshield and filled the tank, with only a brief smile to James because he didn't recognize him. "Three dollars, ten,' he said. 'Nice evening.' He held his hand out flat, palm up, outside James's window, and James counted out the exact change very slowly. When he had paid he said, 'This the road to Caraway?' to stretch the stop out even longer.

'Sure is,' the man said.

'How much further?'

'Be there half an hour.'

'Thank you,' James said. He started the motor and looked over at Mrs Pike, but she didn't seem surprised at the questions he had asked. She just looked down at her hands and waited for him to drive on.

Almost no one else was on the road now. He drove at a steady pace, and in silence, looking at the country around him whenever they were on a straight stretch of road. At first it was just the occasional, very noticeable things that he recognized – that humped bridge that looked like something off a willowware plate, the funny barbecue house off in the middle of nowhere with pigs chasing each other rapidly in neon lights across the front porch. But after another ten or fifteen minutes, he began to recognize everything. The objects that flashed by were all worn and familiar-looking, as if perhaps without knowing it he had been dreaming of them nightly. Even the new things – the brick ranch houses rising baldly out of fresh red clay, the drive-ins and Dairy Queens – seemed familiar, and he glanced at them mildly and without surprise. When he reached the town limits it was just beginning to grow really dark, and his headlights glared briefly against the slick white surface of a newly painted sign. 'Caraway. Bird Sanctuary,' it read. The last time he had been here it had said only 'Caraway.' And he had looked at it and thought, I'll never see that sign again, not for any reason. He hadn't known the Pikes then, nor Joan, nor the Potters; he hadn't foreseen the existence of Simon.

He slowed down as soon as they reached the actual town, and Mrs Pike straightened up and began looking out the window more intently, perhaps already searching for Simon. James kept his eyes straight ahead until they got to Main Street. Then he pointed to an all-night grill and said, 'This is where the buses stop.'

'Oh,' said Mrs Pike.

'Do you want to go ask if they've seen him?'

'I guess so,' she said, but she was looking at him, obviously expecting that he would be the one to ask. He sighed and swung the truck into a diagonal parking place.

'I'll be right out,' he told her.

'All right.'

Once on the street, out from behind the shield of the pickup, he felt clumsy and conspicuous. Girls in bare-backed dresses waited with their dates in front of the movie theatre next door and when he stepped on to the sidewalk they pivoted on their high heels and glanced over at him. He stared back, but there was no one he recognized. And the waitress in the grill was a new one a fat blonde he didn't know. He came up and laid both hands palm down on the counter and said, 'Were you here when the last bus from Larksville came?'

'Yes,' she said. Her voice was tired, and she seemed hardly able to raise her eyes and look at him.

'Did you see a little boy get off?'

'I wasn't watching,' she said.

She began swabbing off the counter with a pink sponge, and James walked out again without thanking her. On the street he looked up and down, hooking his thumbs in his belt and staring over the heads of passersby, but there was no sign of Simon. For the first time he felt uncertain about him, and frightened. He returned to the truck.

'She wasn't watching,' he told Mrs Pike.

'She wasn't,' she agreed, and went on looking calmly out the window.

James knew where he was heading, but he was hoping he didn't have to go there. So he drove down Main Street very slowly, looking right and left, peering into the windows of restaurants and soda shops and scanning the faces of people out for evening walks. Several times he saw people he knew. Seen through the truck window, walking in half-dark, six years older and unexpected in new clothes that James had never known, they looked worn and sad to him. He would look after them a minute with a feeling of bewilderment, almost forgetting Simon until Mrs Pike touched him on the arm. Then he would drive on.

Mrs Pike didn't ask what he was doing when he turned off Main Street. She seemed to think that this was part of a tour around Caraway that anyone might follow, and she gazed in tourist-like respect at a three-foot high statue of Major John Caraway. ('This is Major Caraway,' James's father always explained to them. 'He fought in the Big War.' Meaning the Civil War, though there'd been others since. 'He certainly was a small man,' said their mother. Their father never answered that.) Even when they turned down Hampden Street, where there were no statues and only private houses, Mrs Pike said nothing. She kept on searching the sides of the road, poking her nose toward the window so that the skin between her chin and the base of her throat made one slanted line. James drove more and more slowly. He turned left on Winton Lane and then drew to a stop, letting the truck roll into the grass at the side of the road. They were in front of an old grey house with a great many gables, its yard sprinkled with the feather-white skeletons of dandelions. No one was on the porch. For a while James sat silent, tapping the steering wheel with one finger. Then he looked over at Mrs Pike. She was still searching out the window, almost as if she thought they were still moving. 'I'll be back,' he told her.

'All right.'

He opened the truck door and climbed out stiffly, careful not to make too much noise. But no dog barked. In his mind, he saw now, he had pictured the dog's barking first. He had imagined that everyone would come to the doer to investigate, long before he had reached the front steps; he had seen the long rectangle of yellow light from the doorway and the silhouettes of many people, watching as he' walked awkwardly through the dandelions. Yet he came to the door in utter silence, with no one noticing. He opened the screen, which creaked, and knocked several times on the weatherbeaten wooden door and waited. For a while no one came. Then there were footsteps, and he stepped back a pace. He fixed his eyes on a point just a little above his own eye level, where he would see that hard white face as soon as the door opened.

But when the door did open, he had to look lower than that. He had to look down to the level of his shoulders, much lower than he had remembered, into the old man's small lined face and his eyes in their pockets of bone. His hair was all white now, gleamingly clean. He wore suspenders, snapped over a frayed white collarless shirt which was only folded shut, without buttons. And his trousers bagged at the knees.

The dog didn't bark,' said James.

'She died,' his father said, and stepped back a step to let him into the house.