Losing Battles (23 page)

“There’s a telephone down to what’s known as Stovall’s store in Banner if anybody’s getting ready to have a fit,” he said.

“Then you can just go back, old man,” Mrs. Moody exclaimed. “We know enough about that already.”

“Why, this is Mr. Renfro,” he said. “I reside right up that road.” He turned to Judge Moody, who still wore the handkerchief across his lower face. “Been carrying Mrs. Moody for her Sunday ride? I hope she’s fairly well. You seen anything lately of my son?” He gave a formal scan of the road.

“Take a peep over your head, sir,” said Elvie, giggling.

Mr. Renfro glanced up Banner Top, then whistled.

“Papa!” said Jack, as he came running from the well, bringing him a glass of water. “You didn’t need to be the one to come. What brought you forth?”

“Sensed undue commotion,” said Mr. Renfro after he had drunk. “Nobody that left the house come back, and the mule come back by herself.” He pointed at Banner Top. “I don’t right exactly know how you managed it.”

“I can’t take the full credit, sir,” Jack said, as Gloria blushed. “We all kind of managed it together.”

“I’m glad to hear you admit it, son. You couldn’t bring something like that to pass just by trying,” Mr. Renfro said. “But I don’t
see how you could hardly improve on it for showing how to go about a thing the wrong way.” He handed Jack the glass and struck out across the road and set his good foot on the bank that ran straight up.

“Papa, it don’t need you!” Jack said, catching up with him and stopping him, giving an earnest look into his face.

“Mr. Renfro,” Gloria said, “what the rest of us are busy doing is finding a way to bring the car down in the road again without letting Jack drive it.”

“Well, I kind of wonder, now, which one of you’s been giving the other more trouble,” said Mr. Renfro, eyes bright, looking from Jack to Judge Moody. “It’s a good thing for everybody I come along.”

“Papa,” said Jack, “there’s no call for you to be in a rush about it.”

“Why, there most certainly is a call,” said Mrs. Moody.

“The old cedar tree is your drawback,” said Mr. Renfro. “That’s plain to see from right here. Yes, and that’s a pretty stubborn old cedar. I’d like to up it out of your way for you.”

“Oh yes, and scar the finish of my automobile!” exclaimed Mrs. Moody. “You’re not going to come chopping around my car with any old axe.”

“Papa, that Buick got where it is by cheating its way around that tree. We got to pull it back the same way—that’s the answer.”

“May be your answer, son. I got a more seasoned one,” said Mr. Renfro. He tilted back his head and ran his gaze up the tree. “Good people, I can tell you pretty quick what’s called for, and that is to spring it.”

“What do you mean, spring it?” Mrs. Moody asked.

“Well, talking won’t bring it down,” he said kindly.

“Just a minute, mister,” Judge Moody said. “I’d better talk to you next, and quick, I think.”

“Let’s you and me go up there,” said Mr. Renfro, giving him a sudden grin of conspiracy. “We ain’t too old for a little sortie to the top, are we? I reckon you’re about my age.”

“Papa, Mrs. Judge would have a fit,” Jack stammered out.

“My son thinks his dad may be a speck out of practice. But I think if you asked enough of the right people, you’d find I’m pretty well known around Banner for the results I get,” said Mr. Renfro to the Moodys.

“I’d like to point something out!” Judge Moody was saying.

“Mr. Renfro, we’ve got Aycock sitting in the car,” Gloria said.

“Now I wouldn’t a-done that either,” he said instantly.

“It’s his fault,” Mrs. Moody cried.

“Well, now,” said Mr. Renfro. “That changes the picture. It means going a little less heavy on the charge than I was first inclined.”

“Charge?” asked Mrs. Moody, while the Judge could be heard breathing.

“Plain, common old dynamite, it’s the reliable,” said Mr. Renfro quietly.

“Preposterous!” said Judge Moody. The baby, who had been growing restless, smiled as his new word came popping through the handkerchief.

“I can just see visions of that! To be saved from falling to the bottom of nowhere by getting blown sky-high with a stick of dynamite!” said Mrs. Moody. “Honestly!”

“I’d have to send home for the materials, that’s all. I’ve got bringers,” said Mr. Renfro. “Sunday don’t put a stop to me a minute, not when it’s a need of setting my son a little straighter.”

Jack laid both his hands on his father’s shoulders, and Gloria spoke. “Mr. Renfro, Jack doesn’t need you to rally up your dynamite for him. All he needs is a wife’s common sense, and he’s got that right here.”

Mr. Renfro gave her the same kind of little bow that he often gave Miss Beulah.

“That’s right,” said Jack. “I could’ve already jumped that Buick around that tree and backed her down in a cloud of fiery dust in her own tracks, but Gloria run in too quick with her common sense.”

“And here’s a piece of mine: I’m not going to let any old man go lighting a stick of dynamite under my car, Oscar,” said Mrs. Moody. “I warn you.”

“Under the tree,” Mr. Renfro corrected her gently. “Well, sir, we all have to stop doing what our good ladies tells us not to, and try to make out with doing what’s left,” he said to Judge Moody, the light going out of his eyes. “If you rather get Stovall, and for what Stovall charges, I won’t be mad at you. Now what he’ll come up with is a pair of oxen. Just as set on mischief as they can be, both of ’em, as you’ll know if you can read the glints in their eyes
right well. And you ain’t going to like Stovall’s work or be crazy about his behavior or his oxens’ behavior. And I’m not promising that after he’s had his go at you, you won’t all run crying back to me.” Mr. Renfro put his hat back on. “And now I must plead company. The good ladies is about to make use of some tables spread under the trees. Jack,” he turned to his son and said, “it’s dinner time.”

“Thank you, Papa. Tell Mama to please keep holding it.”

“Papa’s feelings is hurt,” said Elvie, patting her father’s hand.

“Papa, Elvie let the school bus run right smack dab in the ditch,” said Etoyle, popping down off the syrup stand.

“Why, come back to me, Elvie. Can’t you show respect for your family any better than that? That’s Vaughn’s bus.” Mr. Renfro pointed at Banner Top as though nothing unusual attached to it any longer. “Growing up there you’ll find a crop of switches. Bring me one.”

“Papa, me and Etoyle ain’t allowed to go up there, we’re too little! That’s for sweethearts!”

“Prance.”

Frantically, Elvie climbed up and hopped back down. Mr. Renfro took a switch, the lightest of the three she offered, and gave her legs the least brief stinging. Then he dropped the switch, lifted his hat, sent a reserved glance all the way around him, then whistled to the baby once like a far-away train, and mounted his road. Elive passed him, speeding home to start her crying ahead of him.

The baby, looking over her mother’s arm, peep-eyed at Judge Moody with the puff of her sleeve.

“That infant ought to be home,” he fumed. “The help of babies and old men is getting us nowhere.”

“Of course none of these people have any idea of how to get that car down. They’re all one family!” said Mrs. Moody.

“Judge and Mrs. Judge, don’t be downhearted. Banner is still my realm,” Jack said.

“It doesn’t sound like your realm to me,” said Mrs. Moody. “If you don’t have the phone or the team of oxen or any way to get visitors out of here.”

“We got people,” said Jack. “The best thing in the world.”

“I don’t need anything but a single piece of machinery in good working order and a tow line,” said Judge Moody.

“And a driver,” said Jack. “If you’d just waited and tried us
about next Saturday, you’d had it all—me and my truck and a tow rope all ready for your holler.”

“All I hope is by that time we’re not still up there teetering!” Mrs. Moody cried.

Around the legs of both Moodys, Aycock’s bony hounds endlessly darted and shied, loudly sniffing, like ladies being unjustly accused.

“Could we possibly get rid of these dogs?” asked Judge Moody.

“Can I whistle ’em inside with me?” Aycock called.

“No!” everybody cried, and Jack said, “They’d be in the driver’s seat in no time.”

There was another explosion. Jack charged up the bank.

“That was your right front!” he called in a moment. “A good old Firestone tire with the tread still on it. I believe they’re overheating. One way to stop ’em is let the air out of the others before they start copying!”

“Keep your hands off—they’re safer just blowing out,” said Judge Moody. “Dear,” he said to his wife, “how much air did you have put in our tires?”

“The maximum,” she said. “I always order the maximum when I get anything for you.”

“The maximum air? Then just give the others time,” said Judge Moody. He looked at the car and gave a short bark of laughter.

“Now cut it out, Oscar. You’re about to start feeling sorry for yourself. I’ll tell you one thing,” Mrs. Moody said. “If that car hasn’t fallen to its destruction before much else happens, it wasn’t intended to fall.”

“How much longer do you think Providence is prepared to go on operating on our behalf?” the Judge asked her.

“Keep talking like that and it’ll fall right now!” she exclaimed. “Oscar, instead of tempting Providence, you’d do better to head on down this road to that store that’s all locked up. And if you don’t see the man around, climb in through the window.”

“And you know what somebody’d pop up and call it? Trespassing,” said Jack.

“Yes, I’d call it that,” said Judge Moody. “But if we knew where this man was to be found—if we had his ear in this—”

“He’s safe out in a rowboat,” cried Jack. “Though if he only knew what you wanted with him, he’d be right there to say No!
And I’d tackle him for you on the spot, and while you cranked up Miss Pet Hanks, I’d be setting on his chest where I could pound some willingness in him.”

“There’s not too much wrong with any of that, that I can see,” said Mrs. Moody in a piteous voice. “Not if it allows you to use the telephone, Oscar.”

“Direct me instead to the man with those oxen,” Judge Moody told Jack.

“Still out floating in a boat, still the same scoundrel,” said Jack. “And anything else you want to think of, that you’d like to have, old Curly’s the one that’s got it.”

“If we had nothing but a good solid truck!” stormed Judge Moody.

“He’s got it. He’s got mine!” Jack told him. “With no right in the world to a single bolt of it. Before I got the last lick on it, he got ahold of it and they tell me it’s down there inside his old iron shed with the iron shutter rung down on it and the padlock staring at you! Laying in a few more pieces now than it was when it’s ornamenting my front yard, from the benefit of the trip! I bet you a penny he wishes he hadn’t done it.”

“Somebody might have to walk all the way to Foxtown,” Judge Moody said to his wife. “And call from that icehouse.”

“They haven’t got a phone. They don’t need a phone,” said Jack. “But outside help—even if you could try ’em, ain’t they shut? It’s Sunday in the courthouse too, ain’t it?”

“Then what is the answer, in all the sovereign State of Mississippi?” demanded the Judge of his wife.

“You’ve still got to prove it to me you want to
get
where you’re going,” said Mrs. Moody. “I see plenty of misgivings in your face.”

“Right through the handkerchief?” asked Etoyle curiously.

“Right through the handkerchief,” said Mrs. Moody.

When he gave a hapless swing of the arms, she walked up to him. “All right, dear.” She put his hat on him. She took him by the shoulders and said, “March. To the ends of the earth if need be. Only bring me back somebody with the wherewithal and the gumption to get it back for me.”

“Just so he keeps in hollering distance of Banner Top,” said Jack. “We don’t want Judge Moody to get lost.”

“Lost? What do you think he is now?” said Mrs. Moody.

Judge Moody stood still a moment longer, then faced in the direction away from Banner.

“If you come to anybody with some boiled peanuts, I could go through a pack of ’em right now!” Aycock called down.

“Buster, you pay attention to
your
job!” cried Mrs. Moody.

“In what manner and at exactly what moment did he ever get in that car?” Judge Moody paused to ask her. “Did you see him do it?”

“No, dear. I was too busy trying to steer you,” she said.

But it was getting hotter everywhere before they were faced with another red cloud of dust, travelling from the direction of Halfway Forks. Coming out of it was a grinding noise.

Gloria clutched Jack by his belt. He was holding Lady May, and her little face rose just above his like a head-lamp, where she had wrestled her way up his neck and now clamped his ears with her elbows. “Jack, there’s something I haven’t told you.”

“Save it till after dinner,” Jack urged Gloria.

“Here it is. There’s somebody in the world, and not very far away, that could pull that car down in a second, if he wanted to.”

“Then he’s got to have something with more power than a dozen mules he can pull
with!
” he cried.