Part 2 (1/2)

IT WAS BETWEEN eight and nine and the shadows were getting long when Tom Poole came tearing up the dirt lane to his uncles' place. He parked the pale blue VW fastback in front of the barn and he jumped out and slammed the door behind him as if he hated that d.a.m.ned car, which he did. eight and nine and the shadows were getting long when Tom Poole came tearing up the dirt lane to his uncles' place. He parked the pale blue VW fastback in front of the barn and he jumped out and slammed the door behind him as if he hated that d.a.m.ned car, which he did.

”You working late?” Creed's high and reedy voice, from the shadows of the barn.

”I been been working late and now I'm starting the second s.h.i.+ft.” As if it was his uncle's fault. working late and now I'm starting the second s.h.i.+ft.” As if it was his uncle's fault.

The construction project in Utica had gone into overtime, which was just perfect for making Tom's life miserable since he still had his plants to look after. His grandfather Poole had always said that there was no rest for a man who chose to make his way in an agriculturally-oriented endeavor, and the old man should have known what he was talking about since he was usually standing knee-deep in muck when the notion to pontificate came into his head. Tom hadn't ever paid him much attention and he'd certainly never thought that the old coot's useless wisdom would apply to him-first with his college plans and then with his construction job-yet here he was. Watching the sky and hauling fertilizer in a wheelbarrow. Calculating his yield and watching the market. Something told him that this was better than onions, but not by much. He hated onions. That was for sure. And he didn't hate dope, except for the work and the uncertainty that went into growing it.

”I been working late myself,” said Creed, his voice whistling in the dark. He hadn't stepped out of the barn and he wouldn't. Let the boy come in if he had something to say.

But Tom didn't go in. Last year's crop was about used up and this year's was coming on and he humped up the hill behind the cow pasture to see what was what. Hoping that he could get it harvested and dried and cured before the old supply ran out and he developed a cash-flow problem. He had his tools in his backpack. Not the tools from Utica, but his own. He knew he ought to take some other path up into the high field but there wasn't ever time. He ought to park his car over on the Middle Road and cut through the woods on the back side of Preston Hatch's property-either that or find some other way-but who cared. He hadn't ever been caught and Creed hadn't ever been caught running that old whiskey still out there either. History was on his side. History and habit and probably custom too.

Up the hill he went and down a little tractor path that was more like a game trail than anything ever made by a man, and then on through a break in the barbed wire that pa.s.sed for a gate. It sagged and it dripped rust. You could close it up if you had work gloves or if you didn't mind bleeding to death or if your hands were made out of elephant hide like his uncles', but he never bothered. He pa.s.sed through it and walked another thirty yards in the low sun over fallow land. After a while he came to a little patch of woods. His uncle Creed's old still was hidden in the middle of it and his own marijuana plants were set all about the perimeter where they could get sun. The marijuana competed with fiddleheads and poison ivy and Queen Anne's lace and a million other kinds of underbrush that he didn't know by name. It was a mixed blessing. Compet.i.tion and concealment both. There was a time when he'd cunningly set the individual plants among the cornrows, hiding them in plain sight and thinking to put his uncles to work without their even knowing it, but the old men had surprised him and gotten up there with the harvester when he wasn't looking. A season's worth of gra.s.s, straight into the silo. He'd hoped the cows had enjoyed it. Since then he'd come to put his trust in nature. He made do without irrigation, contrary to the conventional wisdom, relying instead on a creek from up in the hills that fed this whole area and kept it all more or less green and yielded up this little copse of trees and brush. The creek ran over a couple of little waterfalls where he'd spent plenty of happy hours as a boy, and it still managed to bring him delight-if only indirectly-now that he'd put away childish things.

It turned out the plants weren't near ready yet, and he didn't know whether to take that as an affront or a reprieve. He was prepared to begin tr.i.m.m.i.n.g them and carrying them down to dry in the hayloft, and he was sure as h.e.l.l eager to start turning his crop into cash, but on the other hand it was pus.h.i.+ng nine o'clock and the air was still G.o.dawful hot and he was just plain beat from the overtime. How come the dope business was turning out to be so much like farming, anyhow?

Vernon was on the porch, collapsed into a great big overstuffed chair. Damp clouds of cotton wadding leaked out of it along every seam as if something inside it had blown up. Vernon sat plucking little bits of the wadding with one hand, rolling them into little pellets between his thumb and forefinger and flicking them into the yard and then starting again. He'd been squinting into the failing sun and waiting for Tom to come down from the high field, down through the pasture and along the fence and into the barnyard where he might either turn toward the house or just get into his car and go. Finally he showed up. He came around the corner of the barn and turned into the yard and the old man spoke to him, his voice coming out with a deep and penetrating kind of squawk, like the voice of a crow slowed down. ”Watch your step among them whirligigs,” he said.

”I see them.”

”You're always in a hurry.”

”I'm a busy man.”

”I guess.”

A light breeze had come up. It pulled the lace curtain out through the window and Vernon brushed it away from his face with one hand. The whirligigs in the yard veered as if they shared one mind among them, rotating to face away from the wind and begin their slow turning. Winged pigs and cows and horses. Chickens and geese and ducks. They creaked in the failing light and the sound of them drew Audie's sharp face to the window from behind the curtain that his brother had pushed away. His eyes were vague and his long beard mingled with the lace curtain and he smiled through it as if he had just been reminded of something remarkable.

Tom came up on the steps and sat.

His uncle said, ”I seen that crop of yours on television.”

”I don't know what you're talking about.”

”I seen it all right.”

From the window Audie muttered something either oracular or idiotic. Maybe words and maybe not.

”I seen it on that 60 Minutes 60 Minutes last week. They was saying it might do me some good.” last week. They was saying it might do me some good.”

”I don't know what you're talking about, Vernon.”

They sat for a minute and the wind kept up and the things in the yard kept turning. Audie said something to them, either to the things or to his relations, but he got no answer. Vernon worked at the chair. After a while a door opened somewhere and the lace curtain billowed out from the window and the door slammed and the curtain collapsed back in on itself.

Vernon did not so much as turn in the overstuffed chair. ”That you, Creed?”

”Suppertime,” said Creed, in from the barn, standing by the dead refrigerator in the dark house. He took a plate of b.u.t.ter from on top of it and swatted away flies and set it on the table. Then he opened the refrigerator and took out half a loaf of bread and put that on the table too. The refrigerator was jammed with stuff but not much of it was food and not much of that was still worth eating. Audie moved from the window to the table and sc.r.a.ped back one of the three chairs and sat.

Vernon flicked away a pellet of cotton batting and held out his hand. ”Help an old man up,” he said.

”If you sat on a straight chair,” Tom said, ”this wouldn't happen.”

”You don't know.”

”I work alongside men older than you forty hours a week. Plus overtime.”

”Work,” said Vernon. He smiled and wheezed. ”I know about work. You couldn't kept up with me in my day.”

”You've still got your day, old man.” Tom stood and hauled Vernon to his feet. ”It's still your day, as far as I can tell.”

”I'm sixty years old.”

In the kitchen, without turning his head, Audie offered something by way of disputation.

”So I'm fifty-nine then. He's right enough. I was born in the fall of twenty-five. I'm fifty-nine.”

”That's not old.”

”I got a birthday coming.”

”I know.”

”My own mother died at fifty-six.” He shuffled toward the door. He was still half bent from sitting and he tilted forward, grimacing behind his beard. ”She had the same cancer as me.”

Tom just shook his head. ”When'd you last see a doctor?”

”I ain't never seen a doctor. Not but that one time I got the blood poisoning.”

”So how do you know what you've got. If you've even got anything.”

”I know what I got. I seen it kill her. We all did.”

Tom held the door for him. ”Go on in and have your supper,” he said. ”Maybe it'll make you feel better.”

”I'll feel better if you give me some of what you're growing up by the still.” Vernon stepped into the inner dark. ”That's how I'll feel better.”

”I don't know what you're talking about,” Tom said.

1960.

Preston.

I THINK IF THINK IF they'd been left to their own devices those boys'd put her in the burn barrel with everything else and meant no disrespect by it. It'd been like something out of Homer. G.o.d knows they revered that woman. they'd been left to their own devices those boys'd put her in the burn barrel with everything else and meant no disrespect by it. It'd been like something out of Homer. G.o.d knows they revered that woman.