THE NEXT morning when he awoke, Jared could hardly push himself from the bunk. Both of his eyes were almost swollen shut, and he had a purple welt down the right side of his face. The muscles in his arms and legs ached each time he moved, and sharp pains shot through his ribs where he had been kicked.
He took the coffee Cloma handed him and sipped it slowly. At first he did not remember the events of the previous night, then they started coming back to him like fragments of a dream. He could see Kristy being dragged from the room, and the thought of her being held as a prisoner by Creedy made him sick. He put the coffee mug on the floor and pushed it away.
For several minutes he sat on the edge of the bunk, trying to put all of the pieces together in his mind. He knew now that what Cy had said was true: this was no game. Each day since he had learned the harsh reality about Angel City, he had hoped that it was all a bad dream that would fade away, that he would awake one morning and find it did not exist at all; but he knew from the empty bunk where Kristy had been, and the pains in his own body, that this was not to be. His situation was totally beyond his understanding, but it was a deadly serious reality.
Jared got up and forced himself outside when the bell rang for the loading of the buses. Cloma pleaded with him to remain in bed, and Cy cautioned him not to go to the fields, but he paid no heed to either of them. He was determined at any cost to show Creedy that he had not been beaten into something less than a man. Walking slowly and painfully one step at a time, he reached the bus and climbed aboard.
There were times that day when Jared could not remember filling the bucket or taking it to the truck. His eyes were narrow slits, and he picked by feel rather than sight. As the heat became more intense, his head pounded beyond endurance; and several times he dropped to his knees and vomited into the green plants. It was mid-afternoon when he finally sank to the ground between the rows and did not move again until Bennie and Cy helped him to the bus at the end of the day.
Each day for the rest of the week, Jared went back into the fields, and gradually his strength began to return. On Saturday afternoon, when he reached the pay table, he glared defiantly at Creedy as he was handed the ten-dollar bill.
Before going to the store, Jared took ten dollars from the sixty dollars left of his savings, and after making his food purchases, he bought two quarts of whiskey. Cloma watched the precious money change hands but said nothing. She knew what he felt he must do.
Late that afternoon, Jared sat on the ground outside the room, a bottle on each side of him. He had already taken several drinks when Cy came out and sat beside him. Cy opened his own bottle, then he said to Jared, “It looks like you plannin’ a party tonight.”
“I thought I’d do some drinkin ’,” Jared replied, not fully aware of what Cy had said.
“Don’t blame you none,” Cy said. “Man take a whuppin’ like you did, an’ then go back to the fields, he oughta drink some. You the most stubborn white man I ever seen.”
Jared turned the bottle up and drained it three inches, then he said, “Folks is killin’ hawgs now in West Virginny.” He was trying to flush the present from his mind and submerge himself into the past, but the mountains and streams seemed to be too far away, if they ever existed at all.
Cy said, “I sho’ would like to have me a big ole fresh ham an’ some baked sweet taters. I could et a ham as big as a watermelon.”
“We made our own hams and bacon and sausage and lard,” Jared said, drinking deeply again. “Smoked the meat with hickory. I always liked to put a piece of fried sausage between a hot biscuit. We had real butter too, and in the winter there was deer meat.”
Cy said, “Mistuh Jay, you oughta hush up. You makin’ that salt poke an’ stewed squash we et fo’ supper swish aroun’ in my belly. I’s gittin’ hongry just listen in’ to you. How come you to up an’ leave all them good vittles an’ come down here?”
Jared drank again, and then he said, “Well, I didn’t rightly want to, and when we finally pulled up stakes and shucked out for Floridy, I was scared spitless. Times just got too hard in the mountains, and I couldn’t make it no more. Taxes was too high, and they wasn’t much way a man could make cash money. I cut logs on one of my ridges ’til they ran out, and I hauled some firewood. Two winters I left home and worked in the coal mines, but I couldn’t stand it down there under the ground. The Lord didn’t mean fer a man to burrow around like a mole and then die with that black stuff in his lungs.”
“I wouldn’t like that neither,” Cy said. “I just got to have me some fresh air all the time.”
Jared turned up the half-full bottle and drained it in one gulp. Then he threw the empty bottle toward the fence and opened another. Cy watched him curiously and said, “You oughta take it kind of easy, Mistuh Jay. They’s plenty of the night left ahead o’ us.”
Jared turned to him and said sharply, “Goddamit, you think I don’t know how to drink?”
“I didn’t mean no thin’ at all,” Cy said quickly, startled by Jared’s angry response.
“Folks aroun’ Dink make they own whuskey,” Jared said, his voice now as calm as if he had not made the previous remark to Cy. “It’s a heap better’n this store-bought stuff. When it comes outen the still it’s white, but you put it in a charcoal keg and it turns brown.”
For a moment Jared fell silent, then he turned back to Cy and said, “You ever do any coon huntin’?”
“I done some once up in Georgie,” Cy answered.
“We used to go ev’ry chance we’d get,” Jared said. “Went mostly just to hear the dogs run. Go out in the woods and build a fire. Never did mess with the coons, though. But I had a uncle who did. His name sounded almost like my wife’s. It was Clomer. He always got drunk before the hunt started, and when ev’rybody else was just sittin’ round the fire, listenin’ and talkin’, Uncle Clomer would run after the dogs and go up in a tree after the coon. He’d catch one and then bring him back to the fire and turn him loose so’s the dogs would run after him again. One night Uncle Clomer went up in a tree, and he was really shirt-tailed drunk. He grabbed that coon by the rear legs and started jerkin’. Only it wad den no coon. It was a wildcat. But Uncle Clomer was too drunk to tell the diff’rence. At first the wildcat thought Uncle Clomer wanted to play, so he gives Uncle Clomer three or four quick jabs with them big back feet. Kicked just like a mule. But Uncle Clomer didn’t turn loose. Then that ale cat commences to get mad. He started makin’ a nest in Uncle Clomer’s hair, only he was takin’ it all off Uncle Clomer’s head. It sounded like they was tearin’ the whole top out of that tree. Leaves and branches was flyin’ ev’rywhere. Then the wildcat decided he’d take off Uncle Clomer’s ears, but Uncle Clomer had other plans. He just couldn’t understand why a coon would carry on so. About then Uncle Clomer gets mad too. In a few minutes we heard the damndest whump you ever heard, so we all run over to the tree, and there on the ground ... ”
Jared suddenly stopped talking, leaned back against the wall and took another deep drink. When he said nothing more, Cy asked anxiously, “Well, Mistuh Jay, what happened to yo’ Uncle Clomer?”
Jared remained silent for several more moments, his eyes transfixed on something past the fence and the fields; then he finally turned to Cy and said, “I ain’t a nobody! I was a deacon in the church! I had a cousin who was a town alderman in Mudfork. I ain’t a dried cow turd you can stomp on and kick!”
Cy couldn’t understand Jared’s sudden shift of conversation, and was confused as to how to respond to it. He said hesitantly, “I knows you ain’t no cow turd, Mistuh Jay. I can tell you ’s fine folks.”
Jared drank again, and then he said softly, “Oughta be snow soon in West Virginny. Kristy was born durin’ a snow. I got the pickup stuck and had to fetch the doctor on a mule. I was a heap more scared than Cloma. She just laughed at me after it was over. And that baby was so little. She looked just like a doll. Never did cry much. I’d pick her up and bounce her up and down on my knees. She really liked that. She would coo just like a pigeon. Never did really cry much. She was a good baby and ... ”
Cy watched as tears welled in Jared’s eyes. He put his hand on Jared’s shoulder and said, “Mistuh Jay, you needen’ fret so. Yo’ girl gain’ be all right. They ain’t done nothin’ to my boy since he been over there. She goin’ be all right, Mistuh Jay.”
“They’s a diff’rence,” Jared said, “a heap o’ diff’rence. That girl never been away from home even one night before we came here. She ain’t been aroun’ like your boy, and she won’t know how to handle it. And besides that, they’s a big diff’rence ’tween a boy and a girl. You oughta know that.”
Cy wanted to say something that might help ease Jared’s fear, but he could not do so. He merely repeated, “She goin’ be all right, Mistuh Jay.”
Jared turned up the bottle, drained it half-way and started singing, “Wes - Vir - Ginny ... mountain mamma .. . take me home ... where I belong ... Wes - Vir - Ginny .. . mountain mamma ... country roads ... take me home ... ”
Suddenly he pushed himself up and staggered unsteadily to the north fence. He laced his fingers through the heavy wire and shook the fence violently, then he dropped to his knees and said, “I ain’t never done nothin’ really bad in my lifetime, Lord ... not a really bad thing ... but You better help me now, Lord ... You better help ... ”
Jared fell forward and lay still against the fence. He was not aware when Cy picked him up and carried him back to the room.