Cormac McCarthy - The Orchard Keeper

The old man sighed. Used to be good coon huntin hereabouts, he said.

What about painters? Warn asked. Was that a painter was hollerin around here one time?

The old man leaned back in his rocker, a wise grin settling among his sagging skinfolds. Well now, he said. Shore, I remember that right well. Been about ten year ago I’d say. There followed a moment of silence in which he seemed to be contemplating with satyric pleasure some old deed. Then he crossed one knee over the other and leaned forward. Shore, he repeated, I heard it. Many’s the time. Had folks stirred up and scared all of one summer. Yessir, stirred up a blue fog of speculatin,

What’d it sound like? the boy asked.

Oh, purty fierce …

Well, you reckon it was a painter?

Nope, the old man said.

After a minute Warn said, What was it?

The old man had begun to rock gently, a benign look upon his face, composed in wisdom, old hierophant savoring a favorite truth … He stopped and looked down at them. Well, I’ll tell ye. It was a hoot-owl.

He studied their fallen faces, the hopeful incredulity. Yep, he said, a hoot-owl. One of them big’ns, screechin and a-hollerin on this mountain of summer evenins like any painter. They’s folks said painter, folks said not. But I knowed what it was right along. So I let em do their speculatin and arguin … I recollect one evenin I was at the store gettin some things, late summer it was and nigh dark, bout eight o’clock I reckon, when it commenced hollerin. Well, I never said nothin. In a little bit it come again. Boys, I mean it got quiet in that store to where you could hear the ants in the candy jar. Stit I never let on nothin and after a while Bob Kirby — he’s there — he hollered at me and he said, Hey! Uncle Ather. You fixin to walk crost that mountain tonight?

Well, I turned to him kind of surprised-like and I said, Why shore. A feller’s got to get home sometime, and the best way he can. How come you to ast me that?

He jest looked at me for a minute, then he kind of grinned and he said, Cain’t you hear that wampus cat?

Why, I said, shore I hear it. Anybody’t wadn’t deaf could hear that, I reckon.

Well, he kind of figured he had me then so he says, Ain’t you skeered of painters, Uncle Ather?

Why shore, I says. Anybody ceptin a fool’d be skeered of one, a full-growed one leastways.

Then I never said nothin, jest went to the dope box and got me a dope and commenced drinkin it and lookin at my watch ever oncet in a while. I could see he was plenty puzzled and he tried to slip a grin to the rest of the fellers there once or twicet cept they wadn’t grinnin and I reckon was more puzzleder’n he was. So he never said nothin neither, but after a while they’s a young feller there, he piped up and ast me if that wadn’t a full-growed one that was raisin all that hell out there. Well, about that time it come again, hollerin, and I looked at him and I said, They Lord God, son, I don’t know what you’d do if a growed one was to squall. Why that ain’t nothin there. But then course they ain’t painters round like they used to be. Back fifty, sixty years ago they’d sing out back and forth crost these mountains all night of a summer till you got to where you couldn’t sleep lessen you did hear em. But it takes a big old tom painter to set up a fuss. That there ain’t nothin. I told him that and about that time shore enough that owl let out another screech couldn’t of been a hundred yards off and I could see the hackles come up on his neck and on Bob Kirby’s too.

I finished my dope and set it down and made like I was fixin to leave then and Kirby, he says, stit grinnin kind of, You mean, Uncle Ather, that you can tell one painter from anothern by its squall?

Well, I said, I don’t reckon I can so good any more. He grinned right big at that.

But, I says, since I seen this’n t’other night I guess it jest don’t worry me none.

Well, they all jumped up with somethin to ast then, how big it was and all. I was already half out the door, but I figured to give em somethin to think about while they walked home, so I turned to em and I says, Why it ain’t more’n a kitten. It’s right up here in the gap not even dusk-dark t’other night I seen it scoot crost the road. Old Scout was layin there on the concrete. Now he’s fell off some of late but used to be he come a good bit higher’n my knee — to where you jest could straddle him, and weighed better’n a hunderd pound. So I looked around and I seen him there and I jest pointed to him and I said, Why he ain’t a whole lot bigger’n Scout here, and said em a good night and went on.

Down the small panes of glass behind the old man’s chair the sun lowered, casting his head in silhouette and illumining his white hair with a prophetic translucence. A little later he rose and went to the table and lit the lamp.

You boys care for some … here, jest a minute. He excused himself and went flapping off to the kitchen from where issued in a moment sounds of cupboards and glassware. When he came back he was carrying two glasses and a cup, a mason jar of some dark red liquid. Here, he said, handing them each a glass. He unscrewed the lid of the jar and poured their glasses. A heavy and evil-looking potion the color of iodine. Muskydine wine, he said. Bet you-all ain’t never had none.

It beaded black and sinister in the soft lampglow. He settled himself in his rocker and filled his cup, watching them taste it.

Mighty fine, Warn said.

Yessir, said the boy.

They sipped their wine with the solemnity of communicants, troglodytes gathered in some firelit cave. The lamp guttered in a draft of wind and their shadows, ponderous and bearlike upon the wall, weaved in unison.

Uncle Ather, said the boy, was they really painters back then?

Warn’s face, a harlequin mask etched in black and orange by the lamplight, turned to the old man. Tell him about that’n, Uncle Ather, he said. That’n you had.

Uncle Ather had already started. Oh yes, he said, allaying doubt with an upthrust of his chin. Yes, they was, long time back. When I was a young feller, workin on the road crew at that time, I caught one.

Caught one?

Yep. He smiled mysteriously. Shore did. Caught him with my bare hands, and I got the scars to prove it. Here he extended a leathery thumb for inspection. The boy slid from his chair and bent studiously over it.

Right here, the old man said, pointing to a place on the inside just above the web. See?

Yes, he said. The skin was wrinkled like an old purse; in that myriad cross-hatching any line could have been a scar. He sat back down and the old man chuckled throatily.

Yessir, he said. He was a vicious critter. Must of weighed all of five pound.

Warn laughed softly. The boy raised his head. The old man sat complacent and mischievous in his rocker, his eyes dancing.

Well, he said, this is what happent. They was a place called Goose Gap — it’s up t’wards Wears Valley. Well, it was when we was blastin in there. Bill Munroe, he’s dead now, he went up right after, soon as rock quit fallin, and then he hollered for me to come up and look see. They’s stit lots of smoke and dust and I couldn’t see too good but I got on up a little ways and directly I seen he’s holdin up somethin. Looked like a groundhog or a little old dog. When I got to where he was at I seen what it was. I hadn’t never seen one afore and it was all tore up and bloody, but I knowed right off what it was. Bill, he couldn’t make nothin out of it. What it was was a painter kit.

We started up through them rocks and directly we come up on anothern. It wadn’t tore up as bad and Bill allowed as to how it must not of been blowed as fer and so we was headed right. Anyway it turned out he was right and in a little bit we come up on the den-hole. It was all blowed out in the front and about a yard and a half of bones layin all around, and back in the back under some rocks we found this’n, the third’n, he’s alive and mewlin jest about like a housecat.