Child of God

  He ain't said.

  Well.

  Just wait on him if ye want.

  Well. I'll wait on him a minute. If he don't come I got to get on.

  He heard the back door shut. He saw her go along the muddied rut of a path to the outhouse. He looked at the woman. She was rolling out biscuits at the sideboard. He looked quickly back out the window. The girl opened the outhouse door and closed it behind her. Ballard lowered his face into the steam from his cup.

  Ralph didn't come and didn't come. Ballard finished the coffee and said that it was good and no thanks he didn't want no more and said it again and said that he'd better get on.

  I wish you'd looky here Mama, the girl said from the other room.

  What is it? said the woman.

  Ballard had stood up and was stretching uneasily. I better get on, he said.

  Just wait on him if ye want.

  Mama.

  Ballard looked toward the front room. The bird crouched in the floor. The girl appeared in the doorway. I wisht you'd look in here, she said.

  What is it? said the woman.

  She was pointing toward the child. It sat as before, a gross tottertoy in a gray small shirt. Its mouth was stained with blood and it was chewing. Ballard went on through the door into the room and reached down to get the bird. It fluttered on the floor and fell over. He picked it up. Small red nubs worked in the soft down. Ballard set the bird down quickly.

  I told ye not to let him have it, the girl said.

  The bird floundered on the floor.

  The woman had come to the door. She was wiping her hands on her apron. They were all looking at the bird. The woman said: What's he done to it?

  He's done chewed its legs off, the girl said.

  Ballard grinned uneasily. He wanted it to where it couldn't run off, he said.

  If I didn't have no better sense than that I'd quit, said the girl.

  Hush now, said the woman. Get that mess out of his mouth fore he gets sick on it.

  THEY WASN'T NONE OF EM any account that I ever heard of. I remember his grandaddy, name was Leland, he was gettin a war pension as a old man. Died back in the late twenties. Was supposed to of been in the Union Army. It was a known fact he didn't do nothin the whole war but scout the bushes. They come lookin for him two or three times. Hell, he never did go to war. Old man Cameron tells this and I don't know what cause he'd have to lie. Said they come out there to get Leland Ballard and while they was huntin him in the barn and smokehouse and all he slipped down out of the bushes to where their horses was at and cut the leather off the sergeant's saddle to halfsole his shoes with.

  No, I don't know how he got that pension. Lied to em, I reckon. Sevier County put more men in the Union Army than it had registered voters but he wasn't one of em. He was just the only one had brass enough to ast for a pension.

  I'll tell you one thing he was if he wasn't no soldier. He was a by god White Cap.

  O yes. He was that. Had a younger brother was one too that run off from here about that time. It's a known fact he was hanged in Hattiesburg Mississippi. Goes to show it ain't just the place. He'd of been hanged no matter where he lived.

  I'll say one thing about Lester though. You can trace em back to Adam if you want and goddamn if he didn't outstrip em all.

  That's the god's truth.

  Talkin about Lester ...

  You all talk about him. I got supper waitin on me at the house.

  II

  ON A COLD WINTER MORNING in the early part of December Ballard came down off Frog Mountain with a brace of squirrels hanging from his belt and emerged onto the Frog Mountain road. When he looked back toward the turnaround he saw that there was a car there with the motor chugging gently and blue smoke coiling into the cold morning air. Ballard crossed the road and dropped down off through the weeds and climbed up through the woods until he came out above the turnaround. The car sat idling as before. He could not see anyone inside.

  He made his way along by the roadside growth until he was within thirty feet of the car and there he stood watching. He could hear the steady loping of the engine and he could hear somewhere faintly in the quiet mountainside morning the sound of a guitar and singing. After a while it stopped and he could hear a voice.

  It's a radio, he said.

  There was no sign of anyone in the car. The windows were fogged but it didn't look like there was anyone in there.

  He came out of the bushes and walked on down past the automobile. He was just a squirrelhunter going on down the road if it was anybody's business. When he passed the side of the automobile he looked in. The front seat was empty but in the back were two people half naked sprawled together. A bare thigh. An arm upflung. A hairy pair of buttocks. Ballard had kept on walking. Then he stopped. A pair of eyes staring with lidless fixity.

  He turned and came back. With eyes uneasy he peered down through the window. Out of the disarray of clothes and the contorted limbs another's eyes watched sightlessly from a bland white face. It was a young girl. Ballard tapped at the glass. The man on the radio said: We'd like to dedicate this next number especially for all the sick and the shut-in. On the mountain two crows put forth, thin raucous calls in the cold and lonely air.

  Ballard opened the car door, his rifle at the ready. The man lay sprawled between the girl's thighs. Hey, said Ballard.

  Gathering flowers for the master's bouquet.

  Beautiful flowers that will never decay Ballard sat on the edge of the seat by the steering wheel and reached and turned the radio off. The motor went chug chug chug. He looked down and found the key and turned the ignition off. It was very quiet there in the car, just the three of them. He knelt in the seat and leaned over the back and studied the other two. He reached down and pulled the man by the shoulder. The man's arm dropped off the seat onto the floor of the car and Ballard, rearing up at this unexpected movement, banged his head on the roof.

  He didn't even swear. He knelt there staring at the two bodies. Them sons of bitches is deader'n hell, he said.

  He could see one of the girl's breasts. Her blouse was open and her brassiere was pushed up around her neck. Ballard stared for a long time. Finally he reached across the dead man's back and touched the breast. It was soft and cool. He stroked the full brown nipple with the ball of his thumb.

  He was still holding the rifle. He backed off the seat and stood in the road and looked and listened. There was not even a birdcall to hear. He took the squirrels from his belt and laid them on top of the car and stood the rifle against the fender and got in again. Leaning over the seat he took hold of the man and tried to pull him off the girl. The body sprawled heavily, the head lolled. Ballard got him pulled sideways but he was jammed against the back of the front seat. He could see the girl better now. He reached and stroked her other breast. He did this for a while and then he pushed her eyes shut with his thumb. She was young and very pretty. Ballard shut the front door of the car against the cold. He reached down and got hold of the man again. He seemed to be hung. He was wearing a shirt and his trousers were collapsed about the tops of his shoes. With a sort of dull loathing Ballard seized the cold and naked hipbone and pulled him over. He rolled off and slid down between the seats onto the floor where he lay staring up with one eye open and one half shut.

  They godamighty, said Ballard. The dead man's penis, sheathed in a wet yellow condom, was pointing at him rigidly.

  He backed out of the car and picked up the rifle and walked out to where he could see down the road. He came back and shut the car door and walked around the other side. It was very cold. After a while he got in the car again. The girl lay with her eyes closed and her breasts peeking from her open blouse and her pale thighs spread. Ballard climbed over the seat.

  The dead man was watching him from the floor of the car. Ballard kicked his feet out of the way and picked the girl's panties up from the floor and sniffed at them and put them in his pocket. He looked out the rear window and he listened. Kneeling there between t
he girl's legs he undid his buckle and lowered his trousers.

  A crazed gymnast laboring over a cold corpse. He poured into that waxen ear everything he'd ever thought of saying to a woman. Who could say she did not hear him? When he'd finished he raised up and looked out again. The windows were fogged. He took the hem of the girl's skirt with which to wipe himself. He was standing on the dead man's legs. The dead man's member was still erect. Ballard pulled up his trousers and climbed over the seat and opened the door and stepped out into the road. He tucked in his shirt and buckled his breeches up. Then he picked up his rifle and started down the road. He hadn't gone far before he stopped and came back. The first thing he saw was the squirrels on the roof. He put them inside his shirt and opened the door and reached in and turned the key and pushed the starter button. It cranked loudly in the silence and the motor came to life. He looked at the gas gauge. The needle showed a quarter tank. He glanced at the bodies in the back and shut the door and started back down the road.

  He had gone about a quarter mile before he stopped again. He stood there in the middle of the road staring straight ahead. Well kiss my ass, he said. He started back up the road. Then he started to run.

  When he got to the car it was still chugging over and Ballard was out of breath and sucking long scoops of cold air down his throat into his seared lungs. He jerked open the door and climbed in and reached over the back seat and tugged at the dead man's trousers until he got to the back pocket and reached in and got hold of his wallet. He lifted it out and opened it. Family pictures within the little yellowed glassine windows. He took out a thin sheaf of bills and counted them. Eighteen dollars. He folded the money and stuck it in his pocket and put the wallet back in the man's trousers and climbed back out of the car and shut the door. He took the money out of his pocket and counted it again. He started to pick up the rifle but he paused and then climbed back into the car again.

  He looked along the floor in the back and he looked along the seat and he felt under the bodies. Then he looked in the front. Her purse was on the floor by the side of the seat there. He opened it and took out her changepurse and opened it and took out a small handful of silver and two wadded dollar bills. He rummaged through the purse and took the lipstick and rouge and put them in his pocket and snapped the purse closed and sat there with it in his lap for a minute. Then he saw the glovebox in the dashboard. He reached and pushed the button and it fell open. Inside were papers and a flashlight and a pint bottle of bonded whiskey. Ballard fetched out the bottle and held it up. It was two thirds full. He closed the glovebox and climbed from the car and put the bottle in his pocket and shut the car door. He looked in at the girl once again and then he started down the road. He'd not gone but a few steps before he stopped and came back. He opened the car door and reached in and turned on the radio. Tuesday night we'll be at the Bulls Gap School, said the radio. Ballard shut the door and went on down the road. After a while he stopped and took out the bottle and drank and then he went on again.

  He was almost to the roadfork at the foot of the mountain before he fetched up the final time. He turned around and looked back up the road. He squatted in the road and set the butt of the rifle down and gripping the forestock in both hands he rested his chin on one wrist. He spat. He looked at the sky. After a while he stood up and started back up the road. A hawk was riding the wind above the mountainside, turning the sun whitely from panel and underwing. It came about, flared, rode up. Ballard was hurrying up the road. His stomach was empty and tight.

  WHEN HE GOT HOME WITH the dead girl it was midmorning. He had carried her on his shoulder for a mile before he gave out altogether. The two of them lying in the leaves in the woods. Ballard breathing quietly in the cold air. He hid the rifle and the squirrels in a windrow of black leaves beneath a ledge of limestone and struggled up with the girl and started off again.

  He came down through the woods by the back of the house and through the wild grass and dead weeds past the barn and shouldered her through the narrow doorway and went in and laid her on the mattress and covered her. Then he went out with the axe.

  He came in with an armload of firewood and got a fire going in the hearth and sat before it and rested. Then he turned to the girl. He took off all her clothes and looked at her, inspecting her body carefully, as if he would see how she were made. He went outside and looked in through the window at her lying naked before the fire. When he came back in he unbuckled his trousers and stepped out of them and laid next to her. He pulled the blanket over them.

  IN THE AFTERNOON HE WENT back for the rifle and the squirrels. He put the squirrels in his shirt and checked the breech of the rifle to see it was loaded and went on up the mountain.

  When he came out through the stark winter woods above the turnaround the car was still there. The motor had stopped running. He squatted on his heels and watched. It was very quiet. He could hear the radio faintly below him. After a while he stood and spat and took a last survey of the scene and went back down the mountain.

  In the morning when the black saplings stood like knives in the mist on the mountainside two boys came across the lot and entered the house where Ballard lay huddled in his blanket on the floor by the dead fire. The dead girl lay in the other room away from the heat for keeping.

  They stood in the door. Ballard reared up with eyes walled and howled them out backward and half falling into the yard.

  What the hell do you want? he yelled.

  They stood in the yard. One had a rifle and one a homemade bow. This here's Charles's cousin, said the one with the rifle. You cain't run him off. We's told we could hunt here.

  Ballard looked at the cousin. Get on and hunt then, he said.

  Come on, Aaron, said the one with the rifle.

  Aaron gave Ballard a grudging look and they went on across the yard.

  You better stay away from here, called Ballard from the porch. He was shivering there in the cold. That's what you all better do.

  When they had gone from sight in the dry weeds one of them called back something but Ballard could not make it out. He stood in the door where they'd stood and he looked into the room to see could he repeat with his own eyes what they'd seen. Nothing was certain. She lay beneath rags. He went in and built the fire back and squatted before it cursing.

  When he came in from the barn he was dragging a crude homemade ladder and he took it into the room where the girl lay and raised the end of it up through a small square hole in the ceiling and climbed up and poked his head into the attic. The shake roof lay in a crazy jigsaw against the winter sky and in the checkered gloom he could make out a few old boxes filled with dusty mason jars. He climbed up and cleared a place on the loose loft floorboards and dusted them off with some rags and went back down again.

  She was too heavy for him. He paused halfway up the ladder with one hand on the top rung and the other around the dead girl's waist where she dangled in the ripped and rudely sutured nightgown and then he descended again. He tried holding her around the neck. He got no farther. He sat on the floor with her, his breath exploding whitely in the cold of the room. Then he went out to the barn again.

  He came in with some old lengths of plowline and sat before the fire and pieced them. Then he went in and fitted the rope about the waist of the pale cadaver and ascended the ladder with the other end. She rose slumpshouldered from the floor with her hair all down and began to bump slowly up the ladder. Halfway up she paused, dangling. Then she began to rise again.

  HE HAD MADE THE SQUIRRELS into a kind of stew with turnips and he set what was left of it before the fire to warm. After he had eaten he took the rifle up into the attic and left it and he took the ladder out and stood it by the back of the house. Then he went out to the road and started toward town.

  Few cars passed. Ballard walking in the gray roadside grass among the beercans and trash did not even look up. It had grown colder and he was almost blue when he reached Sevierville three hours later.

  Ballard shopping. Befor
e a dry goods store where in the window a crude wood manikin headless and mounted on a pole wore a blowsy red dress.

  He made several passes through the notions and dry goods, his hands on the money in his pockets. A salesgirl who stood with her arms crossed hugging her shoulders leaned to him as he passed.

  Can I hep ye? she said.

  I ain't looked good yet, said Ballard.

  He made another sortie among the counters of lingerie, his eyes slightly wild as if in terror of the flimsy pastel garments there. When he came past the salesgirl again he put his hands in his rear pockets and tossed his head casually toward the display window. How much is that there red dress out front, he said.

  She looked toward the front of the store and put her hand to her mouth for remembering. It's five ninety-eight, she said. Then she shook her head up and down. Yes. Five ninety-eight.

  I'll take it, said Ballard.

  The salesgirl unleaned herself from the counter. She and Ballard were about the same height. She said: What size did you need?

  Ballard looked at her. Size, he said.

  Did you know her size?

  He rubbed his jaw. He'd never seen the girl standing up. He looked at the salesgirl. I don't know what size she takes, he said.

  Well how big is she?

  I don't believe she's big as you.

  Do you know how much she weighs?

  She'll weigh a hunnerd pound or better.

  The girl looked at him sort of funny. She must be just small, she said.

  She ain't real big.

  They're over here, said the girl, leading the way.

  They went creaking across the oiled wooden floors to a dress rack assembled out of galvanized waterpipe and the salesgirl fanned the hangers back and pulled out the red dress and held it up. This here's a seven, she said. I'd say it would fit her unless she's just teeninecy.

  Okay, said Ballard.

  She can swap it if it don't fit.

  Okay.

  She folded the dress across her arm. Was there anything else? she said.

  Yeah, said Ballard. She needs some other stuff too.

  The girl waited.