The paper itself was brittle and yellow, the ink faded to brown. The writing began in midsentence on the first remaining page.
Zeke says but I larnt him difernt. Rainin an no foder fer Thunder went foragin.
3 days latter home on ferlow rainin
23 januree las day on Ferlo rainin. takin Zeke bac fer boddyman sed godbis an wen up to th montan Hows fer godbis up thar. filld up canteens from the crik.
14 febwaree fitin in the mornin shot too mebbe 3. Zeke very hapy with my ol red shirt.
2 days latter surendin of ft. Donelson but Forest took us crost the rivver at nit Zeke wen asckulcin but I larnt him difernt
3 martch rainin an no foder fer The phone rang. Rhett, at this hour, whatever that was? Roy snatched it up.
“Cuz?” said Sonny Junior. “Too late to be phonin’?”
“I’m up.”
“Me too,” said Sonny.
“Funny you should call now,” Roy said, thinking of the Mountain House.
“Funny? I been calling you all weekend.”
“There’s no message on the machine.”
“I don’t leave messages.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t think much of putting my voice on machines. Hanging out there when I’m not around, you get what I’m saying, Roy?”
Roy, who’d left hundreds, maybe thousands of messages on machines and in voice mails, was surprised to find he sort of did. “Never thought much about it,” he said.
“You been drinkin’, Roy?”
“No.”
“I sure as shit have. How’s my little nephew?”
“He’s gone to New York, Sonny. You knew that.”
“I knew that. Just wondering whether you heard anything.”
“No. Sonny?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve got a beep.”
“Maybe that’s him.”
Roy took the other call. Not Rhett: he could tell by the intake of breath.
“Roy?” It was Lee. “Did I wake you?”
“I’m on another call.”
“Should I hold?”
“I’ll call you.”
He went back to Sonny, heard a little gurgling sound, like someone was taking a drink.
“That him?” said Sonny.
“No.”
“Who at this hour?”
“Just someone I know.”
“She got a name?”
Roy didn’t answer.
“Aren’t you the quick little worker bee?” said Sonny.
“You’re way off track.”
“Whatever you say.” Then came another gurgling sound. “Roy?”
“Yeah?”
“How come it’s funny me calling now?” Sonny’s tone changed. “Someone been talking about me, is that it?”
“I was just thinking about the Mountain House when the phone rang, that’s all.”
“Huh?”
“What’s it like?”
“The Mountain House? Is that what you’re askin’?”
“Yeah.”
“A fallin’ down ruin. I haven’t been up there in years.”
“Describe it a little.”
“I just did. Fallin’ down ruin.” Another gurgling sound. “Tell you what, Roy. Why don’t you come out and I’ll take you up there?”
“When?”
“Now’s all right. I got a little opening in my schedule.”
“Between what and what?” Roy said.
Pause. Then Sonny Junior laughed, a big laugh that made the phone vibrate in Roy’s ear. “Family,” he said. “What it’s all about.”
Roy changed the greeting on his phone: “If it’s you, Rhett, I’m up at Cousin Sonny’s in Tennessee.” He gave him the number. Playing it over, Roy found he’d said uncle instead of cousin. He didn’t bother to fix it.
Traffic was as light as it ever got. Roy rode through the nighttime sprawl, his uniform folded beside him on the seat, the carbine in the trunk. Sherman razed all of this, down to the ground. And what else had Lee said? The soul part-unconquered, unoccupied, waiting. The meaning of that eluded him. He pressed play.
“I’m gonna tell my mother howdy
When I get home
I’m gonna shake my father’s hand
I will shake their hands that day
When we walk that Milky White Way
One of these days.”
It was so loud and Roy was so caught up in it, he and his mother walking on stars, that he almost missed the fact that he was running on empty. He filled up at an all-night place near the state line. The pump rejected his credit card, so he had to go in and pay cash. The clerk couldn’t speak English. Roy did something he’d never done, bought a bumper sticker off the rack by the register. This one was the battle flag, not very big, no writing on it. He stuck it on the middle of his back bumper and drove off. In his rearview mirror he saw the clerk watching through the glass. He himself started looking at passing things-cell phone antennas, Super 8 motel signs, golden arches-the way they’d appear framed in that little V on the barrel of the Sharps fifty-two he had in the trunk.
TWENTY-ONE
”Looks like you lost some weight there, cuz.”
”I don’t think so.”
”Gonna have a six-pack like mine sooner ’n you know it.” Sonny Junior tapped the hard ridges of his abdomen; muscles popped up in his chest. “Girls’ll be swarmin’ all over you, they aren’t already.”
They stood in a patch of sunlight partway up the mountain, shirts off and tied around their waists an hour or two before on the long climb from where the last dirt lane petered out. There was no path, just trees, rocks, underbrush, the sound of running water and these occasional sunny openings, some of them, like this one, with a view.
“And you’re not even huffin’ and puffin’ yet,” said Sonny Junior, “which is pretty strange for a city boy.”
It was true. Not only no huffing and puffing, but Roy had the odd sensation that his lungs had plenty in reserve. He felt the weight of the inhaler in his pocket, couldn’t remember the last time he’d used it.
“Some view, huh?” said Sonny Junior.
