William Gay - I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down - Collected Stories

No. They wouldn’t. I had to carry the check to the bank and cash it. They raised Cain but I didn’t give em no selection. I wanted it with me. All of it. The notion might strike me to roll around in it.

What are you aiming to do with it?

I been studyin some on that. I’m goin out to Las Vegas, Nevada. I’m goin into one of them gamblin places they got and pick out the purtiest girl in the place. I’m goin to pay her just whatever it takes to dance naked on the table I’m sittin at.

Bender looked at the money again. I expect that would do it, he said.

I may get two of em dancin.

I meant really. What are you really going to do, Mr. Liverett?

The old man looked sharply at Bender and for a moment his eyes looked confused and disoriented. I’m damned if I know, he said, and Bender wished he’d left him his casinos and dancing girls.

What do you plan on doin, Bender?

Hang on as long as I can. I believe that fish is going to shut it down.

Not anymore it ain’t. Don’t you never watch the news? They found a bunch of them little son of a bitches down around Muscle Shoals, Alabama. In the Tennessee River. Then they found some more somers else. Seems they ain’t near as scarce as they thought they was. I look for em to find em in mudholes and everywhere else before they’re through. They may have to cut the river channel just to thin em out some.

Bender drained his coffee cup and set it carefully on the porch railing. He stood up and dusted off the seat of his pants. I got to get on, he said. You be careful with that money, Mr. Liverett.

I aim to. The old man arose as well. He stuck out a hand in a curiously formal gesture. I expect I won’t ever see you again, Bender.

I guess not. Bender took the hand. It was dry and papery and the bones felt light and hollow as bird’s bones.

I don’t know what you’re going to do out there in Nevada. You won’t know a soul

I don’t know a soul anymore anyway, the old man said. That’s all folks are good for. To die off on you.

GAUNT-EYED AND INTENSE Bender stepped out of the thick woods to see why the government truck had stopped in his driveway. The motor of the pickup was idling and the door was open and a young man in a white hardhat already had the sign in his left hand and a claw hammer in his right hand. He was holding tacks in his mouth.

I believe you’ve wandered onto private property here, Bender said.

The young man said something around the tacks Bender didn’t get.

Spit them out, Bender said. You won’t be using them on my property anyway.

The man palmed the tacks and stood holding them. I don’t believe I’m on private property. I was told this was government land, part of the dam project.

You were told wrong then.

They sent me up here to post all this property. I just do what I’m told.

If you do what you’re told then I’m telling you to get the hell off my land.

Interfering with the United States government can put a world of hurt on you. Have they not served you with eviction papers?

No.

Well they’re fixing to.

The man had the sign affixed against a utility pole and was positioning a tack when Bender closed on him. They struggled for a moment in the roadside ditch like drunken dancers. The government man’s hardhat fell off. Bender had him in a headlock and when he released him he crumpled. Bender wrenched the claw hammer out of his right hand and threw it as far as he could into the woods. The man’s left hand had made a fist over the tacks and he was pulling them out of the flesh of his palm.

Hellfire, the man said. His lip was bleeding and he was looking around for his hardhat. When he had found it and had it on he got into the truck and slammed the door. He rolled down the glass. I heard them talking about you, he said. You don’t watch it mighty close you’ll be in a place where the rooms got rubber walls.

Get off my property, Bender said.

THE WOLF HAD SLEPT out the day in a hazelnut thicket near the river and it was full dark before it came out and when it did it crept unbidden into Bender’s dreams. It came delicately down the tiers of limestone shelving to the riverbank and drank and angled across a cleared area toward the dam. This area was laid out with wooden stakes tied with garlands of red plastic but the wolf went on. Far across the manmade basin low thunder rumbled and on the western horizon lightning flickering a fierce staccato rose. By its photoelectric glare the scraped treeless world was as barren and alien as a moonscape.

The wolf paused and raised its head toward where the moon would be were it not overcast and when the horizon quaked and trembled again it increased its pace and by the time the first drops of rain came it was moving at a slow lope. It went down the limestone riprap with surefooted steps and crossed the concrete floor weaving between the rebar without diminishing its speed. It had a brief yellow-eyed glance for all these works of man but seemed to have no interest for it.

The wolf’s shaggy coat was wet now and the stag’s blood coagulated and matted began to melt in his ruff and his front was stained with spreading pink as if he were some jaunty tie-dyed wolf a child might create.

He went past the desecrated Indian mound where long ago men had laid their dead with solemnity and later other men had with like solemnity disinterred them and when it reached the chain-link fence it did not falter but turned at a right angle and ran along the fence until it came to a bulldozed pile of charred trees and scorched topsoil. It ran up the jumble of logs until it was almost at a level with the top of the fence and then it jumped. It landed in thick honeysuckle it had in past times wallowed into a lair and slowed its pace cautiously and followed its path through the sweet smell of honeysuckle into the wild nightshade that had taken Bender’s fallow garden.

From where it stood chest-deep in the tangle of nightshade it could see through the falling rain the yellow squares of light from the house and after a while it took shelter beneath the riot of honeysuckle and lay with its chin on its paws and watched the house.

♦ ♦ ♦

LYNN WAS TALKING but Bender had his eyes closed and he was not listening. His mind was occupied with thinking about the days before the dam project was even rumored and he realized that he and Lynn and Jesse had been living an idyllic life without even knowing it and that this life was as remote to him now as his childhood.

… taking him to my sister’s for a few days, were the first words he heard clearly.

He raised onto his elbows. What? he asked. He noticed with mild surprise that she had been crying.

Just until this is all settled one way or another. We can’t go on like this, this is like living in a motel. We can’t live in a motel the rest of our lives.

I don’t know as Hike the sound of any of this, Bender said.

I don’t know as we have a choice, she said. You won’t even talk about leaving. About taking the money and finding another place. It’s like we’re just sitting here waiting until the police pick us up and carry us across the property line. I don’t know what you plan to do. If you plan to do anything at all. You won’t talk anymore.

We’re a family, Bender said. Me and you and Jesse. Together we can do whatever we have to do. Split up and scattered we’re nothing, just three separate people.

A family talks about things and makes decisions for the good of the family. Not like this … this craziness. Your whole life depends on what they decide to do about some stupid fish.

Bender decided not to tell her what Liverett had said about the snail darter. If you want to go a few days I can’t stop you. But you’re not taking Jesse. He’s as much my son as he is yours. What makes you think you can pick him up like a suitcase and just go away with him?