Some Came Running (105 page)

Off in a field below the barn to the east, a number of Angus beef cattle grazed together under a few big old cottonwoods that dropped to another creek; beyond the creek rose the woods. On the other side of the big house, dropping down the gently falling ridge, was a big field where a corn crop had been harvested.

“That’s the second year,” ’Bama said. “Now next year that’ll be in beans.” He had stopped the car when they came up over the ridge. “Inoculated beans. You see, you buy this inoculation and put it over the seed beans before you plant them. Then these nodules form. Adds nitrogen to the soil. Then after you harvest it you plow that under and put it out in winter wheat. Then in February before it thaws, you sow it in sweet clover or red.”

“Why before it thaws?” Dave said.

“Hell, so you can git in the field,” he said. “You wait till it thaws and you won’t be able to get into it soon enough.

“You can’t see the rest of the cleared land from here,” he said. “It’s scattered out all over.” He put the car in gear again and turned into the lane up to the house. The twelve-year-old in the yard had already seen them and, putting his fan rake down, had started walking unexcitedly toward the house.

“Clint will probably go out with us,” ’Bama said, referring to the cropper, as he drove on in. “He loves to hunt, and works his ass off so he’s free for huntin season. He’s only got one eye, but he can sure as hell shoot a shotgun.”

Clint, it turned out from what ’Bama said as they drove toward the house, hadn’t been off the place to town in over two years. The families did all their necessary shopping in Israel on the river, which was only eight miles from the farm on another road. Consequently, nobody at the farm ever went to Parkman. And Clint would not even go to Israel. He loved the farm, and hunting and fishing, and he read the baseball news in the paper, and that was all he gave a damn about; and he always listened to the World Series on the radio. But other than that, Clint’s wife had to buy everything for him when she went to town on her weekly shopping trips in Israel in the pickup truck, and that even included his farm supplies, which she would have loaded for her by the men at the feed store and which Clint would unload at home.

“But outside of that, Clint has no use for ‘civilization;’ and sometimes I think he resents havin that much,” ’Bama grinned. “They do all their shoppin in Israel. I don’t think my wife has been to Parkman more than twice since we first moved down here.”

Clint was probably still out in the fields with his oldest boy who was fourteen and always helped him after school. “But they’ll be in soon as they know we’re here to hunt,” ’Bama grinned.

“It seems to be just about a perfect setup for you, don’t it?” Dave said.

“Shore,” ’Bama said, pulling the Packard up between the house and the outbuildings, and getting out. “That’s the way I planned it.”

The outbuildings, Dave noted, were all modern, all made of concrete block, all very neatly kept.

“We added all them ourselves,” ’Bama said, following his gaze. “There was nothin here but the old barn and the two old houses when I bought it—and we had to fix them up. My wife raises chickens and sells the eggs and fryers,” he said pointing to one of the buildings. “Matter of fact, there’s quite a few people in Israel and some from Parkman who come down here to buy her stuff. Truck garden there, you see,” he said pointing on behind the house. “Buys almost all the seeds by mail. She loves the pretty colored catalogs.

“Yes,” he said, referring back to Dave’s original question. “It works out just fine. I told you they were all dumb, you know. And they are dumb, you see. Only, don’t make the mistake of thinking dumb means ignorant.

“Come on, let’s go on in.”

The woman met them at the door. She was a long-muscled, heavy-boned, towheaded expressionless woman, not any taller than Dave, and she carried an almost-year-old baby propped on the jut of her hip as she moved about. Behind her stood two little solemn-faced towheaded boys of twelve and ten who looked exactly like her, boned frame, expressionless face and all. The baby was expressionless, too. All four of them stared at him—at Dave—expressionlessly, as if they all thought him some kind of an enemy to be cautious of.

“Hello, Bill,” the woman said woodenly as she ushered them in—and Dave remembered suddenly that ’Bama’s name was really William Howard Taft Dillert.

“Hello, Ruth,” ’Bama said with a curious mixture of gentleness and absolute authority. “I want you to meet Mister Hirsh.”

Quite suddenly, the woman’s face broke into a merry, bright-eyed smile, and the two little boys grinned in unison. Even the baby seemed to look relieved.

“Well, howdy do,” Ruth said. “I’m most very pleased to meet you, Mr Hirsh. Won’t you step on in? I’ve heard an awful lot about you. Here, set yoreselves down. Are you-all hungry? There’s coffee on the stove and I’ve got some fresh homemade pumpkin pie. You, Johnny,” she said without changing the tone of her voice, and the biggest towheaded boy moved his arm in front of the littler one and swept them both back out of the way in the doorway to the next room, where they stood, silent, smiling, their young little eyes watching everything; and the woman, as she moved back and bent to get the pie out of the oven, continued to carry the baby expertly on the jut of her hip, where it rode like some miniature trick jockey who had been on a horse so much he didn’t even need to use his hands.

Dave, not sure what the protocol called for, sat down at the table and the woman slid an uncut pie in front of him and almost in the same movement reached behind him to the old-fashioned kitchen cupboard for a knife and fork which she pinned to a plate with her thumb and sat in front of him, never once letting go of the baby.

“Just you help yoreself,” ’Bama’s wife smiled. “There’s three more in the oven.”

Dave looked at ’Bama, who had sat down in another chair and was now grinning at him, and picked up the knife.

“We come down to hunt, Ruth,” ’Bama said. “Just a cup of coffee, thank you, for me,” he said.

“William never eats pie,” Ruth said smiling as she moved with the baby toward the stove and reached for cups. “That’s because he drinks so much. You, Ted,” she said, again without changing her tone. “Run out and get Clint and Murray. Tell them yore daddy’s here to hunt. People who drink a lot never eat sweets.”

The smaller boy, Ted, walked—very slowly—to the door from which, as soon as he was outside, he took off in a wild, exuberant run, yelling.

“I drink a lot,” Dave said, playing it along by ear, but unable not to feel astonished at her. “But I love pumpkin pie.”

“Then don’t be bashful,” the woman said. “Cut yoreself a real piece. Not just that skinny sliver. Ah’ll be makin more anyways now. I like stout men.”

Dave, although a little taken aback by the allusion to his size, nevertheless took her at her word and cut another, larger piece and slid it on his plate with the small one. The pie was spicy and delicious.

“William ought to eat more,” ’Bama’s wife said. “He just drinks his meals,” she laughed over her shoulder, pouring coffee into the cups. Deftly, she picked both cups up by their handles in one hand and set them on the table while the baby watched from her hip. “There now,” she said smiling. “Ah’ll get the cream.” From the big, modern refrigerator, she took forth a small glass pitcher of pure rich thick cream and set it between them.

“Speakin of drinks,” ’Bama said, “there ought to be some likker around here somewhere, ain’t there?”

“You, Johnny,” Ruth said, nodding her head commandingly. “Go and get yore father’s likker bottle.”

The older boy disappeared silently into the next room, and came back carrying an already opened bottle of Jack Daniels Black Label.

“I took the one of them that wasn’t full,” he said, setting it before his father.

“That’s right,” ’Bama said in that curiously gentle yet authoritative voice, and took the bottle and poured himself a drink, and then handed the bottle on to Dave. The little boy stepped back in silence.

Holding the bottle, Dave hesitated. “Mrs Dillert?” he said. “Pour you one?”

“Oh no. I never touch the filthy stuff,” the woman smiled. “Never have.” The little boy, Johnny, was still standing staring silently at his father. “You, Johnny,” she said. “Don’t stand and watch people eat.”

“Leave him be,” ’Bama said. He turned to look at the boy, expressionlessly. “What is it?” he said.

The twelve-year-old took a great, deep breath. “Dad, can I go huntin, Dad, can I go huntin,” he cried out.

“No,” ’Bama said. “You don’t know how to handle a gun yet.”

“I’ve been practicin with my .22,” the boy said hopefully.

“A .22’s not a shotgun. It’s no good for birds, and there’ll be other men along all around you. You can’t go.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said, his hopeful face settling into a stoic impassivity. He stepped back to the door.

’Bama watched him.

“You get any squirrels?”

“I got two,” the little boy said, coming forward. “And a rabbit. Settin.”

“You do all yore chores this week?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Schoolwork?”

“I got ninety-eight in g’ography.”

A look almost of amusement seemed to flicker over ’Bama’s coldness, then was gone. “All right, I’ll let you go. But you can’t take a gun.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said.

“You can take yore wooden gun and practice with it. But if I hear gettin in the way—or if I see you not handlin it right—” he said, “I’ll send you right back home by yoreself.”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said, “I will.”

“Okay,” ’Bama said, and turned back to his drink. For a moment, his eyes flickered up at Dave and then back down. The little boy stepped back to his place in the doorway, not entirely happy, but impassive with his disappointment.

“Mrs Dillert, this is the best pumpkin pie I’ve ever eaten,” Dave said, feeling a kind of awe for his sidekick, and a mixture of sympathy for, and pride in, the little boy.

“I believe I did get a pretty good do on it,” Ruth said shyly. “You don’t need to call me Mrs Dillert. You just call me Ruth, Mr Hirsh.”

“Then you must call me Dave,” Dave grinned.

Ruth Dillert smiled in a shy, pleased way and for a moment looked as though she were actually blushing. “Why, thank you very kindly, I’m sure,” she said, her eyes shining. Then, abruptly, she sat down at the table with them, gliding the baby around off her hip so it sat on her thigh. Up till then, she had remained standing by the stove. The baby, whose head just appeared above the table edge, stared at Dave, innocent of all conscious knowledge, and Dave looking into those wide, deep grave eyes, suddenly had the distinct impression that he was looking through two holes in the space warp into the deep, untraveled heart of the Universe. Two openings which had not been completely closed up yet by personality. He had the same feeling about the two older boys, too, several times, he noticed later. It seemed to him that almost none of the children he saw anywhere had that look anymore, especially town children, but were instead little images graven of ulterior self-awareness, even when still babies. And he noted, too, that none of Clint’s children, when they came over that evening, had that look, either.

It was not long after Ruth sat down with them that they heard Clint coming. Clint and his boy Murray, led on by little Ted. Ruth had been asking them about the election just before, anxious to learn who had been elected to all the county offices. Dave, who couldn’t have cared less, fumbled around trying to remember some of them, helped by ’Bama when he faltered. The county election had been predominantly Republican, of course, in spite of the fact that Truman had been reelected; and Clark Hibbard and the rest of the ones who ran again had been reelected, naturally.

“We all voted then went to Israel,” Ruth said, talking excitedly about what was obviously a thing of great importance to her. “All except Clint, of course. And we followed the national returns over the radio. But we hadn’t heard about the county yet.” She was glad that Mr Truman had beaten that Dewey. “It was very excitin. Of course, we’re all Democrats here,” she said in an apologetic tone which implied she was not trying to force her own opinions on anybody else, “from Mother Dillert and William’s brother Emmett right on down to little Taylor here,” she said, indicating the baby. The way she said it made it sound almost as if they were a clan or tribe of settlers set down in some alien landscape.

If they were a clan, there was no doubt whatever about who was the leader of it. It was plain that Clint deferred to ’Bama’s opinion, whenever opinions were necessary, and ’Bama accepted this with the same gentle but absolute authority that was his attitude toward his wife and children. It was almost like some sort of ritual play that they engaged in, the way they all acted. And if he seemed cold and unbending, he nevertheless never imposed on any of the others’ sense of their own dignity. Dave watched and listened in silence.

Later on, after they were back in Parkman, Dave spoke to him about it. ’Bama only grinned. “It’s all an act. Like some kind of play script that everybody has memorized their part in because their families been playin it for generations. It lets them all feel they’re important. That they mean something.”

“Maybe they are important,” Dave said.

“Maybe they are,” ’Bama said, and then with that chilling grin of his, “and then maybe they’re not. We don’t any of us rightly know, do we? We all just like to hope it. So we convince each other to believe it.”

Dave could not help feeling a little shocked at such cold-bloodedness.

“Well, if I were you, I’d move myself back down there and live there with them all the time.”

“I would,” ’Bama said, “but it bores me. I don’t like to play the same act all the time. And
you
are full of crap,” he said. “Yore a sentimental slob, and someday it’s liable to catch you up and tear off yore whole head. You wouldn’t stay down there all the time no more than I would.”

But whatever his later comments, he played his “part” to perfection down there on the farm. Clint was a squat blocky man with a dusty black patch over one eye and tremendous arms and shoulders that elided down into a tremendous paunch. His oldest boy, Murray, who was only an inch or so taller but looked much taller because he was so slim, was a level-eyed, well-trained boy who said little and, at fourteen, wore that harassed haunted—and triumphant—look of one who has just passed through puberty and feels he had discovered a secret no one in the world has ever learned. The two of them sat down at the table with them, were served coffee by Ruth, helped themselves at ’Bama’s invitation to the whiskey, and talked about the hunting prospects.