On the River Styx: And Other Stories

  “The caretaker, you mean,” Cici said, her eyes on the turtle. He’s jealous, she thought, actually jealous; he can’t admit that he made a rotten bargain, too.

  “Oh Cici, let’s skip it,” Frank said. “I don’t know what’s the matter with you these days.”

  “I hope you find out,” Cici said, turning her eyes on him, “before my change of life.”

  “Let’s not start that all over again,” Frank Avery said. His voice was tight, a little desperate. “I’m sick of it. And you’ll catch cold, sitting on the ground.”

  “There’s plenty between me and the ground,” Cici said, grinning. She rose and, turning her buttocks to him, brushed the grass off with both hands.

  “See?” she said, over her shoulder. “Besides, I’ve got you to keep me warm.”

  She stepped around the turtle and, taking Frank’s face between her hands, kissed him with exaggerated sensuality on the mouth. When he tried to embrace her, however, she slipped from him.

  “Cici, listen to me,” he said, but she refused, stooping to the turtle.

  “C’mon, monster,” she said. “I’ll take you home and mother you.”

  “Permit me,” Frank said, and clowned a bow, but his heart was not in it. Circling behind the turtle, he seized it convulsively by the rear edges of its carapace and bore it like a hot unbalanced platter to the car.

  “What do you want him for?” he said. Then, “Open the door, will you?”

  “Monster’s peeing on you,” Cici told him, laughing in a way which suggested an alliance with the turtle against him. Watching his face, she was sorry she had laughed, but not for Frank’s sake. Frank was an artist at revenge, he much preferred it to the messy temper which came to Cici so naturally. She knew him now, and would expect reprisal.

  The turtle blundered to the rear of the station wagon and pressed its snout against the backboard. Alarmed by this detour in its life, it scraped its claws like harsh fingernails over the metal floor.

  “Let’s let it go, Frank,” Cici said, afraid.

  “No, no,” Frank insisted. “I’m sure Cyrus would like to see it.”

  Indoors, the turtle looked double its size. Cyrus Jone’s boy Jackie had never seen anything like it. He trapped the turtle in the kitchen corner and dropped marbles on its head until Cici asked him to stop. Mrs. Jone, thin-armed in a cotton print, rushed over and slapped him in deference to Mrs. Avery.

  Cyrus nodded shortly at Cici as if to excuse his remark, and said to his wife, “Not much sense in slappin the boy if you ain’t spoken to him first. He ain’t a dog.”

  “I can’t have him pesterin folks,” she whined, retreating to the stove.

  Cyrus Jones did not answer her. He said to Cici, “Your father telephoned, Miss Cici, he’s comin down tomorrow.”

  “Oh, that’ll be nice,” squeaked Mrs. Jone.

  “Yes,” Cici said. She was holding a baby Jone on her lap while its mother, one eye on the turtle, rummaged nervously with the supper.

  Jackie, a large-headed child with prominent ears, goaded the turtle furtively. It renewed its effort to penetrate the corner.

  “That’s enough, Jackie,” his father told him.

  “I ain’t doin nothin! I just wanted to see if he was all right!”

  “He’s all right,” Cyrus said. He was a big man of strong middle age, whose hands rested tranquilly on his knees. His eyes were restless, however, and Cici knew he was watching her from the shadow of his corner. She glanced at his wife, already pressing a new round belly to the stove.

  Frank Avery came into the kitchen. In his left hand he carried a .22 pistol, which he placed in the corner of the sideboard, in his right the whisky bottle from their suitcase. It was not quite full, Cici noticed.

  “I’ll have your dinner in a minute, Mr. Avery,” Mrs. Jone said. Her eyes switched rapidly from the bottle to the turtle to the pistol, coming to rest at last on Frank’s forehead.

  “Why don’t we all eat together?” Cici said.

  “And Cici can hold the baby,” Frank said to her.

  Cici did not return his smile, and only Jackie said, “Sure, we kin all eat together and watch the turtle.”

  “That’s right,” Frank said. “We might have a cocktail beforehand.”

  “I’m sure you folks’d rather …” Mrs. Jone began, terrified.

  “What are you gonna do with the pistol?” Jackie demanded, touching it.

  He’s been drinking upstairs, Cici thought. I’ll never placate him now, and I’ve missed my chance to let the turtle go. She had forgotten the turtle, she knew it did not matter to her, but suddenly its survival seemed urgent.

  “Whatever you folks want’ll do fine for us,” Cyrus said. He rapped his fingers on his knees.

  “Hey, what are you gonna do with the pistol?” Jackie repeated.

  “Mr. Avery,” Mrs. Jone corrected him.

  “Mr. Avery,” Jackie said.

  But Frank had gone to the pantry for ice. He returned in a moment with four glasses of it.

  “Great,” he said, pouring out the whisky.

  In the moment of silence, the turtle pushed upward against the wall, then fell back heavily to the floor.

  “Jackie wants to know what you’re going to do with the pistol,” Cici said.

  “I was just about to ask Cyrus,” Frank said. He passed the glasses and sat down.

  “What’s that, Mr. Avery?” Cyrus said.

  “That turtle, Cyrus. I understand that kind of turtle is harmful, eats fish and young ducks and things.”

  “Frogs, mostly. That’s right, though.”

  “Dangerous to swimmers, I imagine.”

  “I don’t guess so. They’re pretty leery, them hogbacks.”

  “Frank wants to kill the turtle, Cy,” Cici said.

  “Sure, let’s kill’m!” Jackie said. “We kin shoot him with the pistol.”

  “Shush, Jackie,” hissed Mrs. Jone. When Cici glanced at her, she hid her whiskey glass among the pots on the back of the stove.

  “I don’t want to kill it, darling,” Frank said. “I just don’t think we should let it go.”

  “That’s too bad, darling,” Cici told him. “Because it’s my turtle. I found it, and I’m going to let it go.”

  Her anger was sudden and quiet. The little boy watched her, open-mouthed, and Cyrus said, “I guess I’d ha’ killed it, had I found it, Miss Cici.”

  “You didn’t find it, though,” Cici snapped.

  “You’re being childish about it, Cici,” Frank said.

  “No, I didn’t, that’s true.” Cyrus laughed, as if Frank’s interruption were of no more consequence than the turtle’s bumping in the corner. “But there’s not much good in a critter like that.”

  “That’s right,” Frank Avery said. Prematurely, he refilled all the glasses but Cici’s, which was untouched, and now sat down again. “We all agree it should be killed, Cici.”

  “I ain’t sayin that,” Cyrus said. “I don’t guess one turtle could do much harm on a place this size, although I’d just as soon be rid of it.”

  The baby was stirring now in Cici’s arms.

  “I’ll take it upstairs,” Cici said, over the protests of Mrs. Jone. Her face, pressed to the baby’s head, softened again to its usual fullness, but her mouth was set, and she did not look at her husband as she rose.

  “Cici loves babies,” Frank’s voice said, pursuing her to the back stairway; it was followed by a laugh. “Babies and turtles.”

  Mrs. Jone’s giggle tinkled like the cheap alarm clock over the pots on the stove.

  She was still giggling when Cici returned and sat down to dinner.

  “I do love babies, yes,” Cici said to Frank.

  “Well, I must say they’re a terrible trouble,” Mrs. Jone told her. “You don’t know your own luck, Mrs. Avery.”

  “We have a baby every year,” Jackie announced, but his mouth was already so occupied that nobody understood him except his mother.

  She said, “Jacki
e!” and blushed.

  Cyrus watched his wife, chewing his dinner without expression.

  The turtle had found its way out of the corner and was dragging itself along the wall in the direction of the kitchen door. Cici listened. The belly plate touched the floor on alternate steps, a dull pendulum rhythm of tap and suspense which went unnoticed at the table.

  “Yes, they’d certainly be trouble in my work, with all the traveling I do,” Frank was saying.

  “Oh, you’ll have them, though, Mr. Avery,” said Mrs. Jone. “Never you fear. Why, it’s only nature.”

  “It’s only nature, Frank.” Cici grinned.

  “Of course we will.” Frank Avery frowned. Unlike Mrs. Jone, he had brought his whisky to the table. “Right now, of course, it’s inconvenient, but there’s plenty of time. We’re only thirty.”

  Cici did not comment, she had heard it all before, and to her it rang false and unnatural. As her time diminished, she had settled for Frank Avery and children. She had wanted to love him so badly, and now, in secret ways, he punished her because she could not. Having settled for less, she was to be cheated of that, too. It was all Cici could do to swallow, and sorry for herself, she permitted her eyes to cloud with tears.

  She wondered if Catholic Mrs. Jone had been offended by his tactlessness. But Mrs. Jone was obviously too stimulated to be offended by anything, and Cici looked at Cyrus, who was now intent on the turtle’s progress along the wall.

  Very quietly, without turning toward her, Cyrus said, “His pond must have dried out on him, he’s after a new mud to winter in, this late in the year.”

  Cici nodded. The turtle had exposed itself to trouble.

  She watched her husband, who had heard Cyrus’s voice but lost the words in the clatter of Jackie’s fork, and was now glancing from one to the other with a half-smile, as if he wished to be included.

  The turtle was directly behind him.

  Cici did not enlighten her husband, offering instead a wink of innocence and duplicity which brought new color to his face. He glared expectantly at Cyrus, but Cyrus was absorbed with his mashed potatoes and did not notice.

  Frank rose abruptly and went into the pantry for more ice.

  Moving quickly, Cici horsed the turtle over the floor and out the kitchen door into the darkness, straining the precious seconds in her effort to be quiet.

  “Oh boy,” Jackie said, rising. “Let’s go!”

  “Be quiet,” his father told him, his eyes on Frank Avery, who returned as Cici sat down. Frank’s face was red with irritation, and he only glanced at her questioningly.

  Cici smiled at him and said nothing. Her heart pounding, she cheered the turtle toward the bushes. The success of her coup was overpowering: like a schoolgirl, she was forced to bite on the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing, trembling joyfully in the escape as in a childhood game of hide-and-seek.

  “But it’ll get away,” Jackie whispered to his father, turning away sharply as if he hadn’t meant to whisper it, it had just popped out, and therefore he was not to be blamed.

  “My mashed potatoes are quite nice and fluffy tonight, if I do say so,” preened Mrs. Jone, and dropped her fork.

  “But listen …” Jackie started.

  Frank shifted his gaze to Cyrus, who, chewing placidly, returned it.

  “When we’re finished dinner,” Frank said to Jackie, “we’ll have to kill the turtle.”

  “I’m finished now,” Jackie blurted. “It’s goin to get away.”

  And then there was silence. Finally, Frank Avery said, “Where in hell did it get to, Cici?”

  “I let it go.” The laughter jerked from her mouth.

  “The turtle?” Mrs. Jone said. She stared at the empty corner.

  “That was silly of you, Cici,” Frank said. He was trying to control his voice. “You knew it should have been killed.”

  “Oh, relax, Frank,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter, damn it.”

  They watched him rise and take the pistol and, followed by Jackie, step out into the darkness.

  “Jackie,” his mother said.

  Cici rose and went to the door. “Frank,” she called.

  He came back into the light. “I need a flashlight,” he muttered. Behind him, Jackie’s voice rang through the darkness.

  “Frank, don’t. Please,” she whispered. “It was mine. You’re just killing it to spite me.”

  “You shouldn’t have let it go,” he said, pushing past her. “You’ve tried to make a fool of me all day.”

  When he came back through the kitchen, Cyrus watched him without speaking, but Mrs. Jone whispered, “It’s only just a turtle, everybody. Your dinner’ll get cold.”

  Frank grinned tightly, saying to Cyrus, “We shouldn’t let it go.”

  In the door, Cici blocked his way.

  “You’re being ridiculous, Frank. You’re drunk. And who found the turtle? It’s mine.”

  “Goddamnit,” he said. “You knew I wanted that turtle killed.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “Why? Since when are you so interested in ducks and fish and things? They’ve kept going pretty well so far without any help from you, or the little boy you drag in to keep your courage up.”

  “You know …” he started, but did not bother to go on, because Jackie had found the turtle.

  Defeating its own escape, it was pushing against the center of the nearest bush, its legs braced in the dirt. From the doorway, Cici saw Frank’s dark hand reach across the flashlight beam and grasp the spiny tail.

  Sick, she turned back into the kitchen. When Cyrus rose and went out, she snapped at Mrs. Jone, “How can you sit there and let that little boy watch him?”

  Mrs. Jone ran outside.

  The shots came slow and uneven—one, twothree, four. The fourth shot drove Cici to the door.

  The turtle was moving slowly in the dim light from the kitchen. Frank’s back was to her, and through the excited shouts of the little boy and the shrilling of his mother, she heard a quieter sound.

  “What are you laughing at?” she said, her voice hushed, but he was pointing the pistol again, leaning back, stiff-armed.

  The turtle jerked a little, kept on moving away. One of its hind legs was paralyzed, and there were three black holes in the ancient shell.

  “What are you laughing at?” Cici screamed, and the boy Jackie ran into the house after his mother.

  “I’m sorry, darling,” Frank’s voice came. “I know it’s not funny, but my shooting’s terrible. I can’t seem to hit its head. I must be drunk.”

  “It’s still moving,” Cici whispered, as he turned to her. “You bastard. You perfect bastard.”

  Cyrus came around the corner from the garage. He had a hatchet in his hand and stopped the turtle with his boot. It opened its mouth but could not close it again.

  “Hell, mister, that’s no way to kill a hogback,” Cyrus said.

  He bent and guillotined the turtle as Cici cried out.

  The blood was black on the ground beneath the door light. Cyrus lobbed the head with its still-open mouth out of the light, then hoisted the carcass by the tail and, holding it away from him, moved toward the bushes. Its hind feet were still walking away.

  Crying now, Cici slumped in the doorway. Frank Avery tried to approach her.

  “It’s still moving,” she whispered. “You coward. You couldn’t even kill it.”

  “Cici, listen,” he started.

  “I hate you,” Cici told him. “You’re disgusting.”

  The turtle fell in the invisible underbrush, a heavy breaking crash which jarred the nighttime into silence.

  The returning steps of Cyrus Jone came from the darkness. Behind, the bright-lit kitchen waited, the empty chairs at angles to the cooling dinner. From an upper room, the little boy was crying.

  1953

  TRAVELIN MAN

  November on the Carolina coast is cold at night, a dark clear cold that kills the late mosquitoes.
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  Toward dusk, a black man slithered from a drainage ditch. He moved swiftly on his belly, writhing out across a greasy bog and vanishing into the sawgrass by the river. The grass stirred a moment and was still. A rail bird rattled nervously, and a hunting gull, drawn inland, cocked a bright, hard, yellow eye. Startled, it dropped a white spot on the brown waste of the bog and banked downwind.

  Deep River is dark with piedmont silt and without depth or bottom. It bends its way to its wide delta like a great dead snake slung out across the tidewater, and in the summertime it smells. Alluvial ooze packed tight and rotting on its banks sucks into itself the river debris. Through the grasses near the rim, Traver could see the stranded tree limbs and the prow of the derelict skiff glimpsed earlier in the day.

  It was near dark. Raising his eyes to the level of the grass, he listened a last time. Then he slid forward and, on his knees in the shallows, wrenched the buried skiff from its sheath of mud. It came with a thick sucking sound and the rank breath of its grave.

  Traver knew without experiment that, upright, the skiff would fill immediately. He turned it turtle and waited one moment more, gaining his wind. It was high water, the first of the ebb. The tide and river would be with him. He shivered, moaning softly, though not yet afraid.

  In the water, he kicked away from shore. An eddy curled him back upon the bank. He kicked away a second time, and caught the current. But the slimy hulk would not support his weight, and he coasted along beside it, one hand spread-fingered on the keel.

  He moved downstream. Across the marsh, the lights switched back and forth like nighttime eyes, dancing in the blackness of the pines. The voices came vaguely on the shifting river air, and a new sound stirred him. He sank lower in the water, so that only his hand and half his face broke the low outline of the skiff.

  Dey gone and put de hounds on dat man Traver.

  He giggled, teeth chattering, and cursed.

  The river dragged the capsized skiff across the coastal waterway, which parted the mainland from the inner marshes of the barrier islands. Though wisps of cloud at times obscured the moon, the night was clear. No longer able to see the lights, he was alone in the cold river, which widened now as it neared its mouth. He thrashed his legs for warmth, and cursed to restore his courage. Southeast, an arm of woods from Ocean Island reached across the outer marshes toward the bank. He wanted to go aground there and, fearful of drifting past it to the open sea, began to swim the skiff inshore. To keep himself company, he swore foully at the balky hulk, the cold, the river, the night world.