he’d slept on the night before. There was a lantern on the barrel top, together with his paper sack, and the room had been swept and tidied. He took the pop bottle from the sack and went back out on the dogtrot. “Your momma really fixed me up,” he said, sitting down beside Regus.
“Yeah,” Regus said, “she’s got you sleepin on hay. Already after me to rig up some kind of bedstead.”
Music uncorked the moonshine and passed the bottle to Regus, who took a drink, pursed his lips, exhaled silently, and passed it back. They drank until it was gone.
“I’ve got to work out some room-and-board pay for your momma,” Music said after a while.
“Ha,” Regus said, “I’d like to see you try to get that past her.”
They sat and watched the pale moon where it rode above the barn.
“My people haven’t heard from me in a while,” Music said at last. “I thought I’d write them. Tell them where I’m at.”
“For sure,” Regus said and nodded. “I’ll bid you good night then.”
It took him a long time to start the letter. In a wash of yellow light from the lantern, he smoothed the piece of brown paper again and again with the side of his hand. He had written: “Dearest Poppa and Momma,” and nothing more; for when he put that much down, the impulse to write left him. There seemed, at last, nothing to be said in a letter. Strangely, only after he had lost heart and nearly crumpled the paper did he begin to write, drawing each word carefully with the bitten stub of the pencil. “I am in Kentucky and alright,” he wrote. “Have hired on as a mine guard and living with good folks who took me in. I will stay here a while then come on back home.” He read over what he had written. “Don’t look for me as I will write and tell you when I strike out,” he added. He thought for a while and then, smiling a wry smile, wrote: “Tell brother Luther and Earl to stay on home as it’s hard times, and to say hellow to any pretty girl they see for me.” After much thought, after smoothing the paper again and again, he began once more to draw slow, careful letters upon the square of brown paper bag. “I hope and trust you are all well and alright as I am. Your son, Bill.” He read the letter over carefully, decided it would do, folded it, and put it aside to mail the next morning.
6
GOON
WHEN HE AND Regus rode into Elkin, clattered across the plank bridge, and stepped down from the Model T truck in the smoky-grey light of morning, Ella Bone’s rig and the huge Walker Colt caused him no embarrassment whatever, at least none beyond what he felt already for wearing the stiff new shirt with the badge pinned to it and carrying any sort of gun.
Grady and Cawood Burnside came toward them from the direction of the powerhouse.
What was it about them, Music wondered, that made them seem to own the cinders and gumbo they walked on, the very firmament? Without quite thinking it into words, he knew at once it was the grim, taciturn, penetrating threat that seemed to look out of Grady’s eyes as though, if he thought of it, he might spit on you, or your mother, or your father, or your wife and the babe in her arms. And Cawood? That bastard. With him it was a matter of sheer cockiness.
The straw skimmer, more ornament than covering, sitting on the back of his head, Cawood bawled, “Ay Tune, gettin any wampus?” But then, all at once, Cawood noticed the two or three inches of pistol grip sticking out from underneath the lapel of Music’s coat, and his eyes seemed to bug taking in the lumpish bulk of a weapon nearly the size of a beagle pup strapped to the left side of Music’s chest, and he said no more. The proportions of the pistol seemed to unman him and take him aback. If he noticed Ella’s colorful and flowery bellyband or the large yellow buttons, the sight did not amuse him. It was, Music thought, as Regus had predicted, or perhaps, in a more general way, as Kenton Hardcastle had: there was power in being
“Yeah,” Regus said, “she’s got you sleepin on hay. Already after me to rig up some kind of bedstead.”
Music uncorked the moonshine and passed the bottle to Regus, who took a drink, pursed his lips, exhaled silently, and passed it back. They drank until it was gone.
“I’ve got to work out some room-and-board pay for your momma,” Music said after a while.
“Ha,” Regus said, “I’d like to see you try to get that past her.”
They sat and watched the pale moon where it rode above the barn.
“My people haven’t heard from me in a while,” Music said at last. “I thought I’d write them. Tell them where I’m at.”
“For sure,” Regus said and nodded. “I’ll bid you good night then.”
It took him a long time to start the letter. In a wash of yellow light from the lantern, he smoothed the piece of brown paper again and again with the side of his hand. He had written: “Dearest Poppa and Momma,” and nothing more; for when he put that much down, the impulse to write left him. There seemed, at last, nothing to be said in a letter. Strangely, only after he had lost heart and nearly crumpled the paper did he begin to write, drawing each word carefully with the bitten stub of the pencil. “I am in Kentucky and alright,” he wrote. “Have hired on as a mine guard and living with good folks who took me in. I will stay here a while then come on back home.” He read over what he had written. “Don’t look for me as I will write and tell you when I strike out,” he added. He thought for a while and then, smiling a wry smile, wrote: “Tell brother Luther and Earl to stay on home as it’s hard times, and to say hellow to any pretty girl they see for me.” After much thought, after smoothing the paper again and again, he began once more to draw slow, careful letters upon the square of brown paper bag. “I hope and trust you are all well and alright as I am. Your son, Bill.” He read the letter over carefully, decided it would do, folded it, and put it aside to mail the next morning.
6
GOON
WHEN HE AND Regus rode into Elkin, clattered across the plank bridge, and stepped down from the Model T truck in the smoky-grey light of morning, Ella Bone’s rig and the huge Walker Colt caused him no embarrassment whatever, at least none beyond what he felt already for wearing the stiff new shirt with the badge pinned to it and carrying any sort of gun.
Grady and Cawood Burnside came toward them from the direction of the powerhouse.
What was it about them, Music wondered, that made them seem to own the cinders and gumbo they walked on, the very firmament? Without quite thinking it into words, he knew at once it was the grim, taciturn, penetrating threat that seemed to look out of Grady’s eyes as though, if he thought of it, he might spit on you, or your mother, or your father, or your wife and the babe in her arms. And Cawood? That bastard. With him it was a matter of sheer cockiness.
The straw skimmer, more ornament than covering, sitting on the back of his head, Cawood bawled, “Ay Tune, gettin any wampus?” But then, all at once, Cawood noticed the two or three inches of pistol grip sticking out from underneath the lapel of Music’s coat, and his eyes seemed to bug taking in the lumpish bulk of a weapon nearly the size of a beagle pup strapped to the left side of Music’s chest, and he said no more. The proportions of the pistol seemed to unman him and take him aback. If he noticed Ella’s colorful and flowery bellyband or the large yellow buttons, the sight did not amuse him. It was, Music thought, as Regus had predicted, or perhaps, in a more general way, as Kenton Hardcastle had: there was power in being
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