Disappearances (27 page)

Now as I look back over my life and ask that question once more it seems that if I have been or done anything important it was to transmit life from one remarkable person to another and to endure and love them both, without really understanding either of them. Of the two, I believe I understood my father better, perhaps because his sense of humor made him more approachable. But at the core of both there remains a mystery as unfathomable as the mystery of man himself, which Henry pursued so relentlessly and with such an unexpected result that I still find his conclusion as unacceptable and irrefutable as the saber-tooth tiger he brought home from the ice age when he was five years old.

“How's your leg?” I asked my father as we spun down the tracks in the rain.

“It never felt no better, Wild Bill.”

“I never felt better,” Rat said, taking another drink. He looked at me cannily. “Your father's been shot, boy. How his leg must throb and burn. You'd think he'd take a sup to ease his great travail.”

“Keep your thoughts to yourself,” I said. “He doesn't need a sup.”

It was dusk, and much colder. The temperature had dropped at least twenty degrees since morning. Across the lake clouds were settling in over the dark mountains. I was afraid it was getting ready to snow.

I was also afraid that we had not seen the last of Carcajou, that we would go to jail for wrecking Compton's train and that my father would succumb to the temptation to take a sup to ease his great travail. I was so angry with Rat I could have shoved him off the handcar. Just a few moments ago he had announced that he had had a vision the previous night in which fifteen lean cows came out of the cedar swamp and devoured our fifteen Jerseys.

My father was as cheerful as ever. He assured us that he had never felt better. He said he doubted that there would be anybody to stop us at the American line, and he was right. The big stone border marker above the lake was as lonely as an ancient and forgotten cenotaph. It would be two or three hours before Compton could get to a telephone to report the theft of his train, my father said.

Walter Kittredge was standing on the platform between the county home barn and the track. He was very surprised to see us pull up on the handcar. “Why, Quebec Bill Bonhomme,” he said. “You ain't the milk train.”

“See them cans Ratty's hugging, Walter? That ain't milk in there.”

“I could use a sup,” Walter said. “If ever I could use a sup this is the time. Hello, Henry. I warn't sure who you was in the dark. Who's that? Rat Kinneson? How do, Rat.”

“Give Walter K. a sup out of your bottle, Rat. What's the matter, Walter? Surely you ain't that upset over the train being late.”

Walter took a long drink from the bottle Rat reluctantly handed him. “My, my, my,” he said. “That warn't squeezed out of no Vermont-growed corn. Now if I could just figure a way to sneak into Abiah's room tonight things would be looking up all over.”

“What do you mean sneak into Abiah's room? Do you have to sneak into her room after being married to her for sixty years? What's going on here? Is Abiah sick?”

“Abiah was never sick a day in her life. What we was afraid of has happened, Quebec Bill. Tett's been fired right out. The new superintendent give him his walking papers and told him to go down the road yesterday. Said if he showed up on the premises again he'd put him away for good. Since then things have changed drastically. The women was all made to sleep on the second floor last night. Men on the third.”

“Husbands and wives?”

“Husband and wife don't make no never mind. We've been put asunder, Bill. I and Abiah have been put asunder after sixty years. I didn't sleep a wink and neither did she. First night we spent apart since the night before our wedding. I'm going crazy here with worry. They don't let us set together to eat neither. Men on one side of the table, women on the other. They're all in eating now but I couldn't stand it no more. I had to get some air or go crazy.”

“Who is they? Who's making up all these new rules?”

“Kinneson.”

“Kinneson?”

“None other. Warden R. W. Kinneson, Rat's brother. The county figured he done such a good job as warden they appointed him in Tett's place. Or maybe they figured he done such a poor job as warden they wanted somebody else in his place and didn't know how else to rid theirselves of him. Whichever. It don't matter, because now he's more warden than ever. I tell you, Quebec Bill, I truly am going to go crazy if I don't sleep next to Abiah tonight. This just ain't natural.”

“Walter,” my father said, “do you still have your grandfather's violin?”

“Quebec Bill,” Uncle Henry said.

“I've got it.”

“You wouldn't have no objection to me using it tonight?”

“None at all. But I misdoubt Kinneson will allow any music.”

“Never mind Kinneson. I'll deal with him. You bring me your fiddle, Walter. If you can find one bring a stretcher. I hurt my leg a little up the line.”

“That leg commencing to stiffen up?” Uncle Henry said as Walter went off to get his fiddle and the stretcher. “I maybe could loosen the bandage a turn. We shouldn't fool around here, Bill. We've got to get you to a doctor.”

“I don't know when it's felt so good,” my father said. “If I had a pair of tongs I could reach in and yank that slug right out of there and make it feel better yet.”

“You mean the bullet's still in there?” I said.

“Maybe that's what makes it feel so good,” Uncle Henry said.

“He won't take a sup,” Rat said.

A few minutes later Uncle Henry and I were carrying my father up the long drive to the front door of the county home. He was sitting up on the stretcher playing “
Joyeux de Quebec
” on Walter Kittredge's grandfather's fiddle.

“What's this uproar?” said Warden, stepping out onto the porch. “Oh, a new cripple? Stop that unholy racket and come this way.”

He led us into a long dim foyer. My father continued to play loudly. “I said, stop that,” Warden began to say. Then he recognized my father. “Oh, no,” he said.

My father stopped playing. “What sort of welcome is this?” he said. “Do you want us to go round in back where the coalman comes in? The least you could do is invite us in for a feed, seeing as we're going to play for you tonight.”

“Do you usually play sitting on a stretcher?”

“He's broke his leg,” Uncle Henry said.

“You haven't come here to convalesce, have you?”

“No, rest easy, Superintendent. Evidently in all the to-do of the changeover to your administration nobody told you. Me and my band here are on tap to play for the folks after dinner tonight. We'll be coming twice a month now that spring's here.”

“Well, that's all off.”

“Spring is off?”

“Good Lord, you Frenchmen are thickheaded. Your show is off. The new curfew is eight o'clock. We don't have time for traveling minstrel performances. These old folks and unfortunates have to get their proper rest. Who's that back there by the door? Is that my shiftless brother? What instrument does he play?”

“The spoons.”

“Spoons?”

“Yes, ain't you never heard of spoons? He's a virtuoso on them.”

“What do you mean shiftless?” Rat said. “Now you've moved up in the world you seem to be too high and mighty for your own kin.”

“Has this man been drinking?”

“You're goddamned right I've been drinking,” Rat said. “Jesus give me the say-so. Ain't that right, Bill?”

“This man is intoxicated. Remove him immediately or I'm going to call the authorities.”

“Easy, Superintendent. Easy now, Rat. Superintendent here is a man of grave responsibilities. He's right. These people shouldn't be excited by no show. Get them all heated up and they don't sleep good, they're up and down all night. Tettinger never understood about that. He had me come up here for years but I could never see that it did the least good. Them that was old never got no younger. The feebleminded never got no smarter. Speaking of feebleminded, how do you like Hank and Harlan, Superintendent?”

“They are not feebleminded, they are retarded. Profoundly retarded. Alternative provisions have been made for their care.”

“Tett used to send the worst ones up to my place. We'd be happy to have Hank and Harlan come up. Wouldn't take a cent for it.”

“They need professional care. Provisions are being made.”

“Where's Tett? I thought he might take a look at my leg.”

“Tettinger is where he won't do any more mischief. I must say your leg looks pretty bad. What did you do to it? Stab it by mistake trying to spear pickerel?”

“Are provisions being made for Tett too?”

“Indeed they are. Now if you will kindly return to your vehicle and take that inebriate with you, I will call on your services if I ever need any music. Perhaps at Christmas.”

“Well, that's the trouble, Superintendent. You see we didn't know nothing about the shakeup so we had Orie Royer drop us off. He's went on to Memphremagog to visit friends and won't be back for two, three hours.”

“Oh, no. Not tonight of all nights.”

“I'm afraid so. I reckon you got us on your hands all right. You've got my word we won't be no bother, though. Your brother there ain't really drunk, he's been having dizzy spells. We thought Tett might take a look at him too.”

R.W. looked at us. “All right,” he said. “It's soup and coffee tonight. Just remember: no music.”

“Except for Christmas,” my father said.

“Maybe on Christmas. I said maybe. I won't be held to any promises.”

“We wouldn't want to hold Superintendent to any promises,” my father said.

As we carried him into the long dimly lighted dining room he played the shave-and-a-haircut, two bits ending to a hoedown. Warden rounded on him, puffing out his cheeks like an outraged adder and extending a fat and threatening forefinger. My father made a placating gesture and frowned reprovingly at the fiddle as though it had committed a serious indiscretion.

There were about forty persons at the table, most of whom called out greetings to my father. As Walter Kittredge had reported, the men and women were sitting opposite each other. Next to R.W.'s seat at the head of the table were several empty place settings. My father jumped off the stretcher and hopped along on one leg to Warden's chair. Uncle Henry propped my father's leg up on another chair and sat down beside him. Rat and I sat across from Uncle Henry. Warden had to sit on my uncle's left next to old Prof Elihu Corbitt and across from Abiah Kittredge. Warden shot my father another Gorgon look, but said nothing.

Everyone wanted to know what had happened to my father's leg. He laughed and said that he broke it dancing.

“What happened to your jaw, Quebec Bill?” Mason Cobb inquired. “Did you break that dancing too?”

“No, I broke that calling dances.”

“This soup is watery,” Rat said.

“Turnip soup is very nutritious,” Warden said.

“Where's the sandwiches?” my father said. “Tett always had sandwiches with soup. Leftovers from noon dinner.”

Abiah Kittredge leaned out around Rat, immersing her dewlap in her soup. “What noon dinner?” she said loudly.

“Don't you remember?” Prof Corbitt said. “That marvelous gruel that Beadle Kinneson served us this noon.” He turned to his elderly son, sitting on the other side of him, and shouted, “Wasn't that gruel we had for lunch delicious, Areopagitica?”

“Eh?” Areopagitica said.

“We don't encourage talking at mealtime,” Warden said.

“Yes, Beadle,” Prof Corbitt said. “No talking at mealtime. No sandwiches with the soup. No conjugal correspondence. Beadle has initiated some fine new regulations, gentlemen. As you know I have been accustomed to giving a symposium every year on my birthday. Corbitt's Chautauqua, we called it. I have been informed that this practice also will be discontinued.”

Prof Corbitt was one hundred and six years old. He had been Cordelia's mentor at the Common Academy back before the Civil War and was an outstanding classicist. His birthday symposia were attended by ex-students from all over New England, many of whom, like Areopagitica, appeared to be much older than Prof himself and had to be wheeled or carried into the county home. He began speaking at daybreak and continued without interruption until midnight. The lecture itself was different each year, but always included at least one abstruse explication of the
Aeneid.
According to Cordelia, Prof Corbitt had gained strength with the passage of the decades. He conducted his symposia in both the peripatetic and Socratic traditions, rushing from the vegetable garden to the barn to the dining hall, firing difficult questions at the bevy of devotees hobbling after him or being carried in his frenzied wake on pallets by their children and grandchildren, themselves gray and old.

All year Prof Corbitt prepared for his birthday symposium by going from room to room at the county home trying out his lectures on shut-ins. Sometimes he took off his suspenders and threatened to flog the bedridden elderly. All the sick residents greatly looked forward to Prof Corbitt's daily visit, but he informed us that this diversion too had been discontinued under Superintendent Kinneson's administration.

Throughout this tirade Prof was winking and grinning at a thin girl sitting diagonally across from him. I suddenly realized that this was Little Gretchen, my would-be seductress. Tonight she paid no attention to anyone but Prof, at whom she gazed with great moon eyes.

“This soup is filling at least, Quebec Bill,” old Mason Cobb called up from the other end of the table.

“How's that, Mason?”

“You ain't heard nobody ask for seconds, have you?”