Barry Hannah - Long, Last, Happy - New and Collected Stories

I said well you can see the goat with his front foot, but he hissed or spat so I look out the window away from him, stopt talk.

In your mind you thinking you paying for the gas and tires hauling me. And it was true, what he said.

We had eleven mile to go and it was crooked high down to low then high again, not even a dead dog nor cat nor chicken keep you company under the overhangs of them sweaty rocks. I aint nere liked them and now, getting on dark, the mountains I feel they live and sqeeze in on you to a narrow lane when nobody’s around. I nere give up that feeling sinct I was a kid. It aint Arkansas or no real place. Now come sleet specking my poor dusty glass all acracked, which, I didn’t like the sun running down either.

We’ll have a nice snow tonight, the Yarp adventured. The quiet I was keeping didnt make no call to break it so I remaint quiet. Nineteen or not I was frighted. But if the quiet woulder asked me I woulder said You fool, it’s on too late to snow, that sleet is just a peck from some froze cloud way up there. Its April, you fool.

Yes it’ll catch Missus Skatt just unfreezing from the winter. She won’t have enough wood. I’m sure glad I’m going with you to the warm store, Roonswent Dover.

Yes he called my name. There aint no way of knowing my name and be a stranger cause I go by Bill Dover to everbodys knowlege. I aint got even no license plate on this truck. You can see ten mile clear out here, cant be no stranger as ever came near your house nor your daddy or mommer that you dont know about. Our part of the county can’t have no stranger moren ten minutes. So it were cold quiet now, believe it, no heater in my truck only a lantern in case of a mountain accident, lucky if theyr matches in that glove apartment. I couldnt get no speed outer her neither and we aint got to the real high passes yet. We was in a holler and then a vale, pinking out to the sides. There was some sun, a bit, so sudden I got brave.

But you shunt know my name.

He nored me.

You know too many legends, boy. Everbody does. You got to lie to stay halfway interested in yourself, dont you? The imagination is what ruins it. They shouldn’t never imagined heaven nor hell. They shoulder taken their years, thats all. You already know the more you think of something aforehand it isn’t anything like that at all. They’ll be legending though, they’ll be doing wrong and doing nothing, bargaining with heaven or hell. They shoulder just taken their years and practiced being dumb, over and over. Already that school is confusing you and hurting your mind, Roonswent Dover, son of Grady and Miriam.

I just fix small engines, I aventured.

You lie!

That last shout was good for another two mile of silents.

It snows here when there aint no snows anywhere else near. We must be higher, higher than all Arkansas and Missouri. In our county the Indian were never pushed out and we has whole fullblood Indians, but they are innocent. All the killing and stealing on tourists or policemen or sometimes a local for peculiar reasons is done not by them. Some said it were womens, womens and girls. A Indian told me that when I was seventeen. Now our Indians are Nini Indians. They fought on the Souths side and had slaves where nare white man here fought for either side, most for not knowing there were a war on and the rest, said my Uncle Rell, because they were drunk or idiots. A Ozark army might have swayed the war, says Rell. Our family wernt interbred but some Ozarkens, come to church and school too, theyr daughters get pregnant by them or theyr sons. So the Indians were defeated, and without slaves they moved up here from like Paragould near the river and sorrowed-out and become puny. Anybody can whip an Indian a head taller than him, a girl could do it. It is still a agony how many years? a thousand years after the War Between the States now the Indian is in deep sorrow even to plant a bean or tote water or feed his dog. They groan out loud all the time, feeble and they hate it, cursing Robert E. Lee who promised them slaves all the future. So theyr homes is tragic, likely to be a stricken old bus or a natural cave or sometimes what I saw, they tooken to living secret under a white man’s house that they dug a hole under it. And they are in ever abandoned shack or outhouse, they are in so fast, they might be puny but they are quick, whole families can get on a squat quicker than deer fleas. (The old shacks and cabins here and there was left over from the diamond rush when my pa was a boy.) Reason Im explaining the Indians is they had legends more than us. Theyr chief drives a schoolbus to the VT school and will lie like a mockingbird back and forth to it. The bus dont allow nare radio so that Indian Don Suchi Nini sings to us these stories and believes he is the one who will change them back to real. They still want slaves and Don Nini says the whites better remain strong or, clunk, they be Indian slaves come nigh. When I was littler he had me making my grades and I went to the VT so I wouldnt be no slave. So we know what theyr thinking, and theyr everwhere, slunking round and creeping lenthwise in some Ozark ledge or listening from some nookery, and you cant do nothing about it. Xcept sometimes a girl will kill one, and they are set back in theyr revolution for a few week. I never treated nare Indian bad and most here dont. They might be puny but they scare me, the men dont care whether they got on a dress or overalls, and they will melt right in front of you into a line of trees. So, three mile up from the store on that last bad mountain, this Indian goes across my lights, which, wouldn’t you know, is full of snow, active snow, and he was old and naked except for rubber wading boots. It just made me shake. I never seen nare like it, cracking my teeth that way. Then there were a little mountain girl coming after him with a fork hoe, what a dreadsome ancient sneer on her face. They come off the side of the mountain across the road and maintained on down the mountain where nothing but no goat should get a perch, on down to awful black night rock near the pitch of a well.

Oh! I said out. You see that? Hands bout to tear off the steering wheel.

I didnt see anything at all, lad, said him.

Everthing since he got in that truck was mocking me, minding back. Xcept maybe that speech on legends, hell and heaven.

The snow was churning and up in the road, some storm blowing down about three mile high, seemed right from the North Pole, only in our county. But it was, I knewn he was the Yarp in a way already, I bet. He was lost over there in the dark seat and maybe he didnt see that old Indian and girl. Wouldnt you know the engine quit and overheat and I had to coast down, Ive did it before, all the way to the store. Xcept the unsound got to me, in the curves and sliding on them circular threads that does as tires. The quiet was outside and inside and my poor lights was flickering. I knewn Id have already been down twict and back if the Yarp wadn’t with me.

You hear about murdering thieving females in these parts, said the Yarp.

I werent going to adventure, Nat Hidey, no I werent. Was peering in the snow which, it was heavier than normal snow and it was gray not good white. A Yarp’s eyes of course is suppose to be hot yellow and his skin disappeared from his throat so you can see its tongue long in it and tonsils and open voice box, it makes you sick. I werent going to look over there at all. I werent getting it yet but the Yarps smell of course would be a combination of bull spunk and road kill. Your Yarp suppose to have tiny long bird legs and big long feet too. I was on my way to the store, nailed in my windshield. A Yarp doesnt have to be none of that unless the time come on him. A Yarp has passed for a preacher, you know that. He dont know any breed and he can be an Indian or Kentuckian or live far off in a hospital. But he denominates in black garments, sudden he will lift his coat and you can see all his digestion, everthing he’s eaten all chewed and gravyed-up in them tubes and holds and glands, and it makes you sicker. Thered be a baby’s foot or one woman saw his stomach and there were a human brain. You can picture me as a hard looker through that windshield.