the prows and ribs of longboats, brought in by flatcar and having never reached the river, stuck up on either side in place of rock, horn, plant or doorstep in the sand. The tide had passed, leaving a small anchor and a few links of chain in the Buckhouse acreage which was marked at the farthest point by an old keg in a drift, blown over with weeds. Railroad tracks had come this way and gone. Now the slashed screens and narrow door, the green booths and back room out of town limits, faced on the highway and remained in darkness despite the headlights flashing up and past. But the frame house shook with the rumble of tires.
“What are you fellows doing here?” Luke Lampson untied histobacco bag and squinted into the changing colored lights that flickered outdoors from above the bar.
“Leaning, Luke.”
“Just leaning.”
“Watching the people driving by.”
They squatted in the grass by the red wall or stood, shoulders hunched against the planking, staring off at the night sky or up and down the black road. Their carrying sticks lay across their knees, ends fastened to personal belongings bundled like cabbage heads at each man’s side. Or the sticks were propped in a row at the wall, like racked rifles, and at each man’s toe there rested a woven football filled with undershirts, shoelaces and packages of glazed saltines. The red neckerchiefs, freshly tied, were new. Their coveralls were heavily dusted from the land they had crossed and they talked together, rustling newspapers in the darkness, of the last automobile they had seen.
“
Been many on the road
?” Slowly Luke fanned his hat. Heads leaned farther back, ears were scratched, possessions laid hold of, bugs flicked to the grass again. And one of them mumbled:
“About three hours back there was one. Four door.”
“Two door.”
“I reckon it was four!”
A magazine, with a zebra-skinned woman on the cover and pages damp—retrieved from a hole in the foundations of a barn—was held up to the light and admired. From beneath one pair of coveralls there thrust two shiny leather boots. A leather jacket could be seen at the collar and from the breast pocket there hung the broad white elastic strap of a pair of goggles. He did not speak but watched the cowboy with the rest.
“That must’ve been the car I met. Parked up the road apiece where the driver’s kid was snakebit.”
They stirred as if to rise and settled again, the spy among them silent, faces turned to the shadow.
“I reckon not. I don’t reckon a car like that’d ever stop out here.”
One pulled a bright new harmonica from his pocket and began to play. The man with the magazine finally turned past the cover, and from across the highway, where the store had competed with the Buckhouse ten years before, there was a sudden rustling in the brush and a pebble dropped into a hidden well.
“Keep a good watch, boys,” said Luke and squaring his hat stepped inside and up to the plywood bar. He was watched as he entered and the wheeze of the mouth organ softly faded.
Those who might have remembered that ears had been chewed off long ago in Buckhouse brawls and that women from over many borders, slipped by lax patrols, had been forced to whirl their skirts hip-high at gun point, had passed to other diggings and other cabarets of dried earth. Only a few, remembering how the fights and women had pushed their way outside and over to the porch of the store, driving the keeper through his rear window, lingered close to the old places, within a range of twenty miles.
The spangled, tinkling lantern shade, with red beads and panes of blue, still slid and turned around the single light globe, filling the quiet, summer evening air with twitching, faded streamers of color. There were twenty-two caliber bullet holes in the ceiling.
“Bowl of chowder and shot of muscatel,” said Luke. He rested his foot lightly on the lead pipe rail and stared, pinching his chin in his hands, at the cans of beer
“What are you fellows doing here?” Luke Lampson untied histobacco bag and squinted into the changing colored lights that flickered outdoors from above the bar.
“Leaning, Luke.”
“Just leaning.”
“Watching the people driving by.”
They squatted in the grass by the red wall or stood, shoulders hunched against the planking, staring off at the night sky or up and down the black road. Their carrying sticks lay across their knees, ends fastened to personal belongings bundled like cabbage heads at each man’s side. Or the sticks were propped in a row at the wall, like racked rifles, and at each man’s toe there rested a woven football filled with undershirts, shoelaces and packages of glazed saltines. The red neckerchiefs, freshly tied, were new. Their coveralls were heavily dusted from the land they had crossed and they talked together, rustling newspapers in the darkness, of the last automobile they had seen.
“
Been many on the road
?” Slowly Luke fanned his hat. Heads leaned farther back, ears were scratched, possessions laid hold of, bugs flicked to the grass again. And one of them mumbled:
“About three hours back there was one. Four door.”
“Two door.”
“I reckon it was four!”
A magazine, with a zebra-skinned woman on the cover and pages damp—retrieved from a hole in the foundations of a barn—was held up to the light and admired. From beneath one pair of coveralls there thrust two shiny leather boots. A leather jacket could be seen at the collar and from the breast pocket there hung the broad white elastic strap of a pair of goggles. He did not speak but watched the cowboy with the rest.
“That must’ve been the car I met. Parked up the road apiece where the driver’s kid was snakebit.”
They stirred as if to rise and settled again, the spy among them silent, faces turned to the shadow.
“I reckon not. I don’t reckon a car like that’d ever stop out here.”
One pulled a bright new harmonica from his pocket and began to play. The man with the magazine finally turned past the cover, and from across the highway, where the store had competed with the Buckhouse ten years before, there was a sudden rustling in the brush and a pebble dropped into a hidden well.
“Keep a good watch, boys,” said Luke and squaring his hat stepped inside and up to the plywood bar. He was watched as he entered and the wheeze of the mouth organ softly faded.
Those who might have remembered that ears had been chewed off long ago in Buckhouse brawls and that women from over many borders, slipped by lax patrols, had been forced to whirl their skirts hip-high at gun point, had passed to other diggings and other cabarets of dried earth. Only a few, remembering how the fights and women had pushed their way outside and over to the porch of the store, driving the keeper through his rear window, lingered close to the old places, within a range of twenty miles.
The spangled, tinkling lantern shade, with red beads and panes of blue, still slid and turned around the single light globe, filling the quiet, summer evening air with twitching, faded streamers of color. There were twenty-two caliber bullet holes in the ceiling.
“Bowl of chowder and shot of muscatel,” said Luke. He rested his foot lightly on the lead pipe rail and stared, pinching his chin in his hands, at the cans of beer
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