Cormac McCarthy - The Orchard Keeper

Warn blew little cone-shaped thistles into the fur. No, he said. Ten maybe. See here — he blew again, cotton mink. Takes a first-class mink to bring twenty dollars. The boy nodded.

Fur’s slippin, Warn said. Whew, here. He handed the mink back. Sure raised hell with it, didn’t he?

The boy took it and pitched it underhand back up onto the shelf in the woodshed. He clambered down the pile of logs and they went out together. Some wasps were hovering beneath the eaves with their long legs dangling. Small buds already on the locust trees. It would soon be nothing but bones, but he wouldn’t come to see, like when he dug up the flying squirrel he had buried in a jar and found only bones with bits of fur rolling around inside the glass like bed-lint.

They took the road to Warn’s house, the fields still too wet to cross, passed the store.

You got any money? Warn asked him.

No, he said. I ain’t sold my hides yet. You?

Naw. I sold my hides but I ain’t got nothin left. I blow it in quick as I get it. Got me some new shoes for school is about all.

What you get for em?

For the hides? I don’t know; two dollars on most of em. That big rat got three I think it was and some of em the man said was kits and they didn’t bring but a dollar. I had eighteen hides and I think it come to thirty-one dollars.

I should get six dollars, the boy said. I owe out two. Who you owe?

Sylder. He loant me the money for traps when Gifford got mine. I’d done signed a paper to buy em uptown — on account of the man let me have those first ones I bought at lot price.

You keep messin with Sylder and signing papers uptown and sech shit as that and you goin to get your ass slung in the jail after all. Lucky Gifford didn’t do it.

Gifford’s chickenshit.

Oh, Warn said. I didn’t know you had him scared of you.

Warn had his own room in the back of the house. The boy sat on the bed while he went through the top drawer of an old-fashioned sewing cabinet. He dredged up: a hawkbill knife, three arrowheads, a collection of rifle-balls velvety gray with oxidation, a scalpel, rocks, some dynamite caps, miscellaneous pieces of fishing tackle, dried ginseng, a roll of copper wire … Rifling through the mass he at length came up with a thin and dog-eared pamphlet, its cover decorated with an archaic and ill-proportioned ink sketch of a trapped lynx. Across the top in black script was the title TRAPPING THE FUR BEARERS OF NORTH AMERICA. Warn handled the treasure reverently. I got this from Uncle Ather, he said. It’ll have something in it.

Under a section entitled Lynx and Bobcat Sets they found a plan of such devious cunning as appealed to their minds. The bait was to be suspended from a limb and overhanging a stump. The trap would be set on top of the stump, so that when the victim stood — the illustration depicted a great hairy lynx sniffing at the bait on hind legs — his paw would come to rest on the stump and so into the trap — also illustrated, in broken-line, straining beneath a handful of leaves.

Warn nodded in solemn approval. That’s the one, he said. The boy studied the set carefully and then Warn tucked the book away in the sewing cabinet.

You reckon it really was a bobcat?

I don’t know what-all else it could of been, Warn said. Ain’t nothin else around here got sharp claws that I know of.

I sure could of used that ten dollars, the boy said.

The desk sergeant studied Marion Sylder’s angular frame with a hurt look, as if he were being put upon. Sylder looked back at him with a suggestion of good humor. The desk sergeant rebent his head to his papers, his lips working in patient disgust. He pondered for some minutes, replaced a folder in the filing drawer of the desk and reached for a pen. Name, he said, gazing at the inkstand with weary boredom.

Fred Long.

Marion Paris Sylder. Occupation.

Iron and steel …

None. Married?

No.

Married. Address.

Red Mountain Tennessee.

Route Nine, Knoxville. Mm … Age.

Twenty.

— eight. Previous convictions.

Silence.

Previous convictions.

The sergeant looked up at Sylder as if surprised to see him there. Previous convictions, he said again, slowly.

Again a moment or two of silence. Far to the rear of the building a remote clanking sound. The sergeant waited. Then he nodded wearily to the patrolman sitting in a chair by the door. The man rose and sauntered over to the prisoner, something of the laconical about him. Sylder turned to look at him. When he turned back to the man at the desk the patrolman jabbed his nightstick into his ribs.

Ow! Sylder said.

The patrolman looked aggrieved. Previous convictions, droned the sergeant, stifling a yawn.

You seem to know all about it, Sylder said. Oof!

The patrolman studied his face with an eager look, holding the stick in readiness again.

Previous con—

None, Sylder said.

None.

The sergeant leaned back with closed eyes, a rapt and serene look. The patrolman returned to his post at the door. From the cells to the rear of the building came bits and pieces of a sad voice singing. The sergeant turned papers over. In the outer corridor men were coming in, stamping their feet arid rattling their raincoats, cussing the weather. A furnace pipe clattered.

At length the sergeant regarded Sylder again. I reckon that’s all for now, he said. You’re booked on illegal possession — untaxed. I got somebody comin down wants to see you, have a little talk kindly.

Who’s that? Sylder said.

Fella name of Gilford. Ever hear of him?

Jailer!

Sylder’s third visitor was the boy, wide-eyed and serious before the smirking usherance of the jailer.

Here’s your uncle, the jailer said. Little buddy come a-callin.

The boy stared at the man seated on the steel bunk. The jailer followed his gaze. Well now, he said, he don’t seem too peart, does he? Looks kindly like he’s been sortin cats. Step on in and say howdy. Cheer the poor feller up some.

The boy stepped in. Sylder’s eyes focused onto him, he managed a small grin, a nod. Howdy there, Hogjowls, he said. The door rattled to behind them, the jailer departing, heelclack, keyjangle, echoing down the corridor.

Howdy, said the boy. What happent to you?

Well, I had a little disagreement with these fellers … as to whether a man can haul untaxed whiskey over tax-kept roads or whether by not payin the whiskey tax he forfeits the privilege of drivin over the roads the whiskey don’t keep up that ain’t taxed or if it was would be illegal anyway. I think what they do is deeport you.

No, the boy said, I mean … you wreck?

Oh. No … I was wrecked all right, but I didn’t wreck. He fingered sorely the particolored swellings on his cheek and forehead. Kindly a bang-up job, ain’t it? Mutual acquaintance helped out with the decoratin … the deacon Gifford. With two buddies to hold me. Wadn’t even much spirited about it till I kicked him in the nuts. Now they got to worry about gettin me unswole so as I can appear in court. I got some busted ribs too that they don’t know about yet. I’m sort of holdin em for a ace. Here, set down. He grimaced and dropped his feet down off the bed to clear a seat.

The boy hadn’t said anything else. He lowered himself onto the bunk, still staring at Sylder. Then he said:

That son of a bitch.

Ah, said Sylder.

How’d they … you said you never wrecked, how did they …

Catch me? It wadn’t hard. I had my choice though, I could of jumped off the bridge. They live ever oncet in a while.

What?

Water in the gas. A little too much rain, I reckon. Too much for old Eller’s leaky-assed tank leastways. There’s one bill the son of a bitch’ll play hell collectin. — It quit in the middle of the Henley Street Bridge.