Tyler shifted his weight on the balls of his feet. Not him, he was thinking. Man follow his directions, no telling where he might wind up.
I don’t reckon, he said.
Say you don’t reckon. That means you ain’t. If you don’t know for sure, then there ain’t no use hemmin and hawin about it.
No, then.
Then what are you even doin here then? This ridge is a place for worshipers tonight. No place here for sinners. No stormcellar here for sinners and backsliders to crawl into.
I just heard the singing and followed it. I’ve been turned around in the woods. I’m lost.
Lost? The face had leant closer yet and wore such a look of beaming benevolence that Tyler had begun to look skittishly about for someone else to ask. Madfolk he had fallenamong here and no safety in numbers such as these. The man had proffered his hand and Tyler shifted the rifle right hand to left and warily shook it. The hand was hot and dry and frantic.
I know all about lost, the benevolent madman was saying. I wrote the book on lost. I was lost myself till Jesus reached down tonight and plucked me out of the slop I was crawlin in and stood me on my own two feet. You can ask Pearl if you doubt what I say.
The bonneted woman was nodding indiscriminate agreement all the while, but the children’s faces watching were just the carefully closed and slightly skeptical faces of children and they told him nothing at all. The darkhaired girl was very pretty, and she was staring at him with a nightransfixed intensity.
Claude was saved tonight, Pearl said. He was a drunkard for twentyodd year, but tonight he give it all up.
I’m just trying to get to Ackerman’s Field, Tyler said. I come from Centre and I’ve been turned around in the woods.
Lord, you’re a long way from home, the man said. But you’re closer to Ackerman’s Field than you are Centre. You must be plumb wore out and about starved to death.
I just need to get to town. I have to see somebody bad. You don’t have a telephone, do you?
Lord, no. They work on wires, don’t they, and they ain’t never run no wires in here.
I can maybe catch a ride into town from here then.
But the man would not have it so. His hand had clamped Tyler’s biceps. His eyes sought Tyler’s eyes with a divine fixity as if righting this lost and doubtful sheep would consolidate his pact with whatever had struck him here this night. You goin with us. You goin to get somethin to eat and a bed to sleep in and you goin into town with us in the mornin. We go of a Saturday. Can’t let you wander around here all night, and it wouldn’t be Christian to leave you to the varmints.
Tyler made to pull away, but this seemed much the lesser of several evils, and at the mention of food his stomach had twisted with an almost painful writhing. He allowed himself to be tugged along toward whatever they were moving to. All the other revelers had gone as finally as if the night had taken them. The trees were steeped in a murky blue negation of light, and above them and the dark blue suggestion of horizon a moon had risen halfobscured by lavender clouds like a pale cataracted eye watching them.
The man talked as they progressed, he had not ceased. This here is Pearl, he said, gesturing toward the woman. These is Drew and Aaron and this here grown girl or thinks she is is Claudelle.
There was an old pickup truck turned into a sideroad. The truck had a flat bed with sideboards cobbled up out of slabs. It had been black but was a black now that remembered nothing of paint and seemed to draw light and suck it out of sight somewhere beneath its surface.
Nobody said anything, but Tyler guessed he was to ride in the back and climbed onto the tailgate. The two boys followed, and the girl would have as well, but the woman grasped her arm and pulled her toward the cab.
The road they followed was bowered so low with branches that they were forever ducking and ended sitting against the cab. As they progressed light to dark, the moonlight made lace filigrees of moving shadow in the truckbed. He rested his head against the cold metal of the cab.
The road spooled palely out behind them and shadow took it and it seemed never to have existed, a road formed by the headlights and diminishing in the red glow of the taillights, beyond that just windy space and nothingness save Sutter trying to devise a way to cross it.
What was you huntin? the biggest boy shouted over the roar of the truck. The younger boy was already asleep against Drew’s shoulder, eyes closed and lashes shadowed on his pale face.
What?
What was you huntin? Squirrels, rabbits, what?
Bears, Tyler said.
The boy glanced at the rifle Tyler clutched. He leaned to spit through the sideboards at the fleeing road and gave Tyler a cold cat’s look. You come armed mighty light for em, he said. Tyler just grinned and didn’t say anything. When the truck ceased they were not before some shotgun shack as he had expected they would be but a substantial farmhouse set in the lee of dark hills. Beyond it other buildings that lay in shadow, the bulk of a barn. He could smell woodsmoke from the fire they’d left. The cab doors sprang open and they got out.
Is Aaron done asleep? the woman called.
I reckon. He’s laid against me ever since we left.
Hand him down here then, Drew.
Claude was striding toward the porch. At its edge he halted. Boy, where’s that wood you was supposed to stack on the porch. There ain’t nary a stick up here.
Drew had scrambled down from the truckbed. I clearlight forgot it, getting ready for meetin and all. You reckon a good kick in the hind end would help you remember? Claude asked, but there was no real force behind his words. He seemed still touched by whatever of brotherhood he’d soaked up at the campmeeting and willing to pass this magnanimity along to those with human failings.
I believe I can remember it without you goin to that trouble, Drew said easily. I’d do it right now, I reckon.
I reckon you will. Take this lost sheep along with you to help. He turned to Tyler. Just follow Drew here. It’s down by the barn.
When they had progressed out of what Drew judged to be hearing distance, he said, He’s the damnedest feller for stackin wood on the porch I ever seen. Specially as long as I’m doin it.
Tyler didn’t say anything. There were no trees to block the moon here and the barnlot lay told in somber shades of black and silver. The wood was corded under a crude shed of old barn tin nailed on poles and Tyler started ricking it up on his arms.
It’s a wheelbar here somewhere. Saves totin it.
The wheelbarrow was a rickety homemade affair of short boards nailed to cedar poles and its wheel had once served a cultivator. The wheel was unsure of its moorings and moved when you pushed the wheelbarrow with a fey drunken whimsy of its own.
Was you sure enough lost?
I sure enough was. Still am.
You wadn’t huntin bear, though. My guess is you was coon huntin and got turned around and lost your dogs. Did they not ever tree?
If they did I didn’t hear them. Boy, you was lucky to get out alive, wanderin around in there at night. I ever get lost in there, I aim to travel in the daytime and lay up at night. There’s all kinds of wells and holes back in there. Mineshafts. I had a uncle, Mama’s brother, Clifford Suggs, he went huntin in there Christmas Day in 1945 and he ain’t come out till yet. They hunted for him no tellin how long and never even found a track. What do you reckon happened to him?
I don’t know.
I bet he’s down one of them shafts. Nothin but bones by now, I bet. Clifford was all right. He was one of my favorite uncles, but still and all, I’m glad it’s him and not me. Think about dyin like that. Fallin off down one of them things and no way out. Layin there hurt and nothin to eat and them walls too steep to climb. Watchin the daylight and birds flyin over and stuff. It just seems to me somebody ought to be watchin things like that.
Do what?
You know, whoever’s in charge of all this. Whoever’s supposed to be watchin things, seeing after em. Pa
