CHAPTER NINE

When Joey awoke he heard Mr. Ben in the living room, got up, and went in there to dress. The old man was setting the table.

“Morning, Joey,” he said. “How did you sleep?”

“Hi, Mr. Ben. I was sort of worried in the night.”

“I can see why, but there’s no earthly reason for you to worry, Joey. None of this is your fault, nothing can happen to you because of it, and I’m glad it happened the way it did. Last night I had a chance to suggest to that … the teacher that she had better be careful.”

“Do you think she will?” Joey asked. “Crenshaw likes her, and he’s good, Mr. Ben.”

“Yes, he’s a good man even if he is a little slow. I think her trouble is that she came from a very small town, no man paid her much attention, and now that she’s here and two men are paying her attention it’s gone to her head. Probably no one paid her attention at home because they grew up with her and knew what a sidewinder she was.”

“What’s a sidewinder?” Joey asked. The word intrigued him.

“It’s a rattlesnake, but I meant it as a sort of troublemaker.”

“Yes, sir,” Joey said. “Sidewinder. Sidewinder.” It was a good word, and he said it several more times to himself; it engaged him for a moment, and then he returned to his preoccupation. “What do you reckon she’ll do, Mr. Ben?”

But Mr. Ben had had enough of it. “I don’t know,” he said, “and I don’t think you need bother about it. Forget it and enjoy yourself. Let’s have breakfast.”

“Yes, sir,” Joey said, and his heart sank. He had come to the end with Mr. Ben, and knew that there was no use trying to go farther.

“I forgot to tell you,” Mr. Ben said as they went into the kitchen, “that I got a letter from your father yesterday. He’s coming down to pick you up when you go home. He wants to bring a few things.”

“Yes, sir,” Joey said, and although he always enjoyed being with his father, he wished that it might have been some other time.

Mr. Ben had taken some eggs out of the cabinet, and broke them into a pan. “I wrote your father back and I wrote a note to Ed Pitmire,” he said as he began to beat the eggs. “I wish you’d get the letters on the dining table and take them out to the mailbox so they’ll go right away this morning. Mailman will be here pretty soon.”

“Yes, sir,” Joey said, and went and got the letters and took them down the lane.

Joey put the letters in the box, raised the little red metal flag, and closed the box again. He was very depressed and walked slowly back to the house. Mr. Ben had the scrambled eggs on the table, and they sat down to eat. Joey didn’t feel very hungry, but Mr. Ben had a fine appetite and was quite cheerful; it was almost as if a load had been taken off his mind all of a sudden.

“What’s your program for today?” he asked. “Charley hasn’t showed up, has he?”

“No, sir, he hasn’t,” Joey said. “I looked for him when I came back from the mailbox.” He swallowed some scrambled eggs, not liking them, and then decided to try Mr. Ben out once more. “Mr. Ben, you reckon my father will come down sooner than he thought he would?”

Mr. Ben looked at him, and a small, secret grin appeared on his face. “I don’t see why he should,” he said. “He’s a busy man. He has to work twice as hard now as he used to just to keep you in shells. Do you want to still-hunt?”

“I reckon so,” Joey said, but without much enthusiasm.

“You could go back and try those rabbits again.”

Joey didn’t want to do that; the schoolhouse was that way. “No, sir,” he said. “I thought I’d save that and take my father there.”

“That’s a good idea. Why don’t you go with me to visit my traps later this afternoon? We might even hear some turkeys go to roost.”

For the first time that morning Joey began to take an interest in life. “Turkeys?” he asked. “You reckon we might?”

“Could be,” Mr. Ben said. “We’ll be up around the head of the Pond late in the afternoon, easing along quiet and slow, and the chances should be pretty good.”

“Yes, sir,” Joey said. “I reckon I’ll do that. I’ll go out this morning somewhere and come back for lunch, and then we can go.”

“Good,” Mr. Ben said, and they got up and took the dishes out and washed them.

When this chore was finished, Joey went into his bed­room and put on his hunting shoes and got his gear together. While he was doing it he wondered where he would go. He considered paying a visit to Horace and talking to him about his problems; there was no one else he could talk to, and somehow he felt close to the crippled boy. But he abandoned this idea after a moment, for he might encounter Sam White and he shrank from having to talk to the man, of looking into his close-set, inattentive eyes and thinking of him reaching for the teacher and beating Odie and Claude and Charley and the mule. The thought of these things brought a hollow feeling to his stomach; he couldn’t do it.

He stood in the middle of the room feeling isolated and lost, and then a recollection of the swamp came into his mind. Silent and still, other-worldly and remote, it suddenly seemed the place for him to go. He nodded, went through the living room and picked up his gun and told Mr. Ben where he was going, took his casting rod from the porch, and went down the hill. The day was windless and quite still; the Pond lay dreaming and flat as a mirror in the sun. He felt better just looking at it, so untroubled and serene, without problems, ready to bear him up and ask nothing of him but that he enjoy being upon it. He stowed his gear in the bateau, got in, and shoved off.

He paddled along a few yards off shore, pausing occasionally to drop his plug between the cypress butts, and caught two nice bass before he came to the close-growing cypresses where the stream emptied into the Pond. Here he stopped paddling for a moment and looked around as though to orient himself, and then went on. The cypresses began to close in around him, like a multitude of columns in a great hall whose lofty ceiling was the blue of the sky darkened by a fretwork of branches; the dark cedar water was the glimmering floor. The feeling came upon him, as it had before, that he was in another world quite different from the open, sunny world of the Pond; it was like the fairy-tale world of children that no grownups nor any hostile thing could enter. He paddled so slowly and carefully that there was hardly a ripple about him.

He recalled for a moment how frightened he had been the other time, and it seemed a far-off thing; he wasn’t frightened now. Somehow the experience of getting lost had awakened, in its mysterious way, the sense of orientation, the intangible compass in the mind that some people have, that, even in a country unknown to them, holds them subconsciously in the direction they want to go. He didn’t have to think about it; he knew he would get out; his mind was free to listen in the brooding quiet and his eyes were free to watch. The gray drooping Spanish moss grew thicker; the solution to the mystery of what might be there around the next bend continued to elude him.

He recalled the otter and suddenly found himself wishing for it. He wanted to see it again—not to shoot at; the thought of shooting at it never occurred to him—but to watch, unseen, as it moved about its concerns in fluid beauty. He went on for a while longer, silently and in expectation, but he didn’t see it. Finally he turned back, still hoping that the otter would appear and bring the movement of life to the great columned hall of the swamp, but it did not.

Mr. Ben had a little upright round sheet-metal stove with a square base, which he set in front of him in the bateau when the weather was cold. He used it mostly to dry and warm his hands after pulling a trap out of the water to take out a drowned muskrat. Joey collected an armful of sticks for firewood while the old man built the fire in the stove; when he had it going he put the stove in the boat, sat down in the stern seat, and they started out.

It was late in the afternoon and shadows were growing long as they paddled up the north shore of the Pond; there was a chill in the air. Mr. Ben had a string of muskrat traps around the Pond, set under water near the entrances of muskrat holes, and occasionally he would head into shore and they would both lean over the side and check the trap. By the time they reached the head of the Pond they had three muskrats, fished up drowned in the traps; the traps had been reset and lowered to the bottom again.

The sun was not far from setting when they started back down the southern shore, and the silence-that comes toward sundown, when whatever wind there is tends to die with the dying sun and the woods prepare for night, held the world. The rhythm of Mr. Ben’s paddling grew slower and Joey stopped paddling altogether; Mr. Ben lighted his pipe, and they slid along slowly not far off shore at the head of an oily V of ripples. As they came around a point, missing the cypress knees a little offshore, a sudden flutter and flapping came to them across the water from the next point several hundred yards ahead; a big dark shape flew up into a tree on the shore.

Joey half rose from his seat; Mr. Ben began to back water at once.

“A turkey!” he whispered. “A turkey!” The paddle made a swirling ripple, the water sucked at it, and the old man, digging into the water, got the bateau stopped and slowly backed it behind the point again. “Did you see him?” he whispered. “He’s in the tree!”

Joey stared at him, excitement running along his nerves like an electric current. “I saw him!” he whispered. “I saw him, Mr. Ben! What do we do now?”

Mr. Ben was excited too, although he tried to appear blasé. “We’ll keep still for a while,” he said. “Then we’ll cross and go down the other shore.”

“Aren’t we going to shoot him? Are we just going to let him sit there? Mr. Ben—”

“Shhhhh!” Mr. Ben said. “He won’t move again now unless we frighten him. We’ll come back early in the morning and just knock him out of the tree.” He grinned at Joey. “I can taste him already.”

“Are you sure he’ll stay?” Joey asked. “Couldn’t we sneak up when it gets dark?”

“We couldn’t see him, and he might fly off if he heard us coming. He’s roosted now; he’ll stay there.”

Joey wasn’t convinced; he was very much afraid that the turkey might move during the night, but Mr. Ben knew more about turkeys than he did, and he finally accepted the old man’s decision. They sat quietly, occasionally grinning at one another, as the sun went down and the light faded from the sky. When it was dark Mr. Ben paddled across the Pond and they crept down the far shore.

As they went up the hill in the dark Joey began to think about his father again, wondering whether he had come down sooner than he expected to and would be waiting at the house for them. He hoped not; he wanted with all his heart to have the turkey hanging triumphantly on the porch when his father got there. He could hardly wait until they reached the top of the path to see whether there was a light in the house. There was.

“Somebody’s here,” Mr. Ben said, and sounded surprised.

Joey didn’t reply; he was too cast down. He followed Mr. Ben silently as they climbed the steps and went into the kitchen.

There were footsteps in the living room and then a form in the doorway, but instead of being Joe Moncrief it was Crenshaw. Joey could hardly believe his eyes. Crenshaw stood in the doorway with his head forward a little, looking rather wildly at them.

“They took her away,” he said. “Mr. Ben, they came and brought another teacher and took her away.”

“Took who away?” Mr. Ben asked. “Miss Emma? They took Miss Emma? Who took Miss Emma?”

“Yes, sir,” Crenshaw said. He looked distraught. “Yes, sir.” He started to raise his right hand, and lowered it again in his agitation. “Yes, sir,” he said again.

“Well, well,” Mr. Ben said. He put the muskrats on the table and started for the door. “Let’s go in the living room, Crenshaw. Sit down in there and tell me about it.”

“Yes, sir,” Crenshaw said, and turned.

Mr. Ben followed him into the living room, and Joey followed them to the door and stood there looking at them. He was so relieved that he felt a little detached.

“Now, then,” Mr. Ben said as they both sat down. “Tell me what happened. I haven’t got it straight yet.”

Crenshaw scrubbed at his face with one hand. “Along about a couple of hours ago Miss Emma came to my house with a man from Williamsburg—I reckon he’s the principal there—and said the man got a call on the telephone from the State Board in Richmond to come get her and put her on the evenin’ train. They said they needed her right away at the school in Blacksburg. That’s where she come from, I reckon I told you.”

“I think you did.”

“Yes, sir. So he was goin’ to take her and put her on the train. She was cryin’ a little, she said she liked it here, and she didn’t want to go, but the man said the State Board wanted her to, so she had to do it. She asked me would I pack up her stuff and send it to her, and then she said good-by and they took off down the road.”

“I see,” Mr. Ben said. He nodded his head several times; Joey could read nothing in his face.

Crenshaw’s hands stirred restlessly in his lap. “Mr. Ben, I liked her right good, I was thinkin’ of askin’ her to marry up with me, and now …” His voice died away; he sat looking at Mr. Ben with an expression at once lost and protesting. “You reckon they can do that? Take her away, I mean, and put her back in Blacksburg? I liked her right good, like I say. …”

“They’ve done it,” Mr. Ben said. “They can put her in any school where they need her.”

“Yes, sir, I reckon they can,” Crenshaw said, and a hopeless note came into his voice. “Could be I might never see her again. I don’t know how I’d ever get all the way yonder to Blacksburg. I ain’t much for all this travelin’. I never been on a train.” His big body slumped in the chair and he shook his head several times and stared at the floor in front of him.

Mr. Ben stood up and moved closer to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t take it so hard, man,” he said. “I’m sure it will all turn out. You can write to her, and after a while if you still want to see her you can go up there.” Crenshaw shook his head again, but didn’t look up. “You say the man brought another teacher with him?”

“Yes, sir. She’s pretty old, and got a face like a hatchet. I reckon she’ll stay with the Perkins for a few days and then move in.” He gave a long sighing breath and then slowly stood up. “Well …” he said, and looked unhappily around the room. “I reckon if they want to do it, they can do it. I just had a mind to ask you.”

“I wish I could help you,” Mr. Ben said, “but the State Board has the say with the teachers.”

“Yes, sir, I reckon it does.” He stood there for a long moment. “Well, I better go. I sure thank you, Mr. Ben.”

“Stay and have some dinner with us. It would cheer you up.”

“I thank y’all,” Crenshaw said, “but I reckon I’ll go home.” He got himself into motion and walked past Joey without noticing him. Mr. Ben followed him into the kitchen, lit a lantern for him, and saw him out the door.

He didn’t look too downcast by Crenshaw’s troubles when he came back; in fact, Joey thought that he almost had an expression of satisfaction, and that puzzled him. He had felt sorry for Crenshaw himself, although the news that the teacher was gone from the vicinity had brought with it a feeling of great relief. “He was pretty sad, wasn’t he, Mr. Ben?” he asked.

“He was indeed,” Mr. Ben said. “He’ll never know what a great favor … but never mind that.”

“Sir?”

“He’ll get over it,” Mr. Ben said and, turning to the kitchen cabinet, got out a can of corned-beef hash and opened it. “You cut up those boiled potatoes we had left over, and we’ll make lyonnaise potatoes again.” As he worked away to get the hash out of the can he began to sing. “‘I was feeling mighty frisky,’” he sang, and did a dance step or two, “‘When they caught me with the whisky …’ Cut them up smaller,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Joey said, slicing away and smiling at Mr. Ben’s cracked voice and his unusual gaiety. “I didn’t know they changed teachers that fast.”

“They don’t, usually. This was a sort of accelerated case, you might say.” He put the hash in a frying pan and collected the potatoes from Joey. “Gentlemen, sir, that’s what it was. You’d better set the table.”

“Yes, sir. I reckon Mr. White will be a little surprised.”

“Indeed he will, if he’s not already. If those boys come around in the next couple of days it might be just as well if you had something else to do. They’re going to sweat for it.”

“Yes, sir, I reckon you’re right. I won’t go out with them.” He stood with the knives, forks, and spoons in his hand, feeling very sorry for Odie and Claude.

“Hash is getting ready,” Mr. Ben said. “How’s the table? We ought to eat and go to bed early. We’ve got to get up long before sunrise.”

“Yes, sir,” Joey said and got into motion. The turkey had slipped into the back of his mind with all the other things that had been going on, but now that Mr. Ben had recalled it, all the excitement came back again. The old man came in with their dinner, but Joey found it hard to eat very much. Even if his father came tomorrow they would have the turkey to surprise him with. “Great day!” he said. “I bet my father will be the most surprised man in the whole United States when he sees us with a turkey, Mr. Ben. Can we hang it on the porch, so that he sees it as soon as he drives in?”

“That’s where we’ll hang it.”

“Yes, sir.” Joey wiggled in his chair at the very thought of pointing the turkey out to his astonished father. He ate a few more forkfuls, and then couldn’t sit still any longer. He got up and found the turkey call and sat down again, but although he tried it all sorts of ways, he couldn’t get the right notes out of it. Finally, somewhat crestfallen, he put it back. “I reckon I just never will learn to work it,” he said. “I do everything you do, but …”

“Well, you won’t need it anyhow,” Mr. Ben said. “At least, this time. But I’ll put it in my pocket when we go. Aren’t you going to eat any more?”

“No, sir, I reckon not.”

“We’ll wash the dishes then and go to bed.”

They washed the dishes, and Mr. Ben got his old alarm clock, wound it, and set it for four o’clock. Joey undressed in the living room, said good night to Mr. Ben, and went into the chilly bedroom and crawled into bed. The bed was cold; they had forgotten to heat their bricks, but he didn’t want to get up again and wait for a brick to get hot. He curled himself up, hugging his knees, and presently grew drowsy. As he fell asleep he was thinking of the turkey, of it falling from the tree, and hanging on the back porch for his father to see when he stopped behind the house.

Mr. Ben had touched off a small fire in the living room stove; it took some of the night’s chill off the room, but not all of it. Still half asleep, Joey shivered with cold and excitement as he dressed in the wan light of the single lamp.

“Put plenty of clothes on,” Mr. Ben said. “It’s cold out, and it’ll be colder on the water. I’ll get my gun.”

Joey fumbled with buttons and yawned and stumbled about, but finally he was dressed; Mr. Ben came back from his room with his gun. “I’d better shoot him,” he said. “I’m not too sure your twenty-gauge will talk to him loud enough. I’ve got some BB shells that will burn him good. …” He felt in his pockets, looked surprised, and said, “Well, I had them. I’ll go find them.” He went off again, and Joey could hear him walking around and poking into things; finally he returned, and they blew out the lamp and went outside.

It was very dark; the stars glittered brilliantly, and the cold made them catch their breaths. Joey hunched himself up inside his clothes, and they started down the path. Gradually Joey’s eyes became accustomed to the dark, but his shivering didn’t stop; if anything, it increased as the great moment drew nearer. They reached the wharf, untangled the bateau’s chain with great care, climbed aboard, and shoved off. A cold and ghostly mist trailed over the water, almost as high as the gunwales, occasionally swirl­ing head-high, hiding the surface. It gave Joey the feeling that they were moving through the clouds, detached from the earth.

He picked up his paddle and helped Mr. Ben as they slid along the dark and umbrageous shore now hidden, now revealed by the slow swirls of the mist. The exercise warmed him a little, but when they came opposite the point where the turkey was, Mr. Ben whispered to him to put his paddle down and turned for the other shore. The cold moved into him again, his excitement increased, and his teeth began to chatter; they sounded as loud to him as a circus band, and he found a handkerchief in his pocket and wadded it up and bit down on it.

They slid silently up to the point; the bateau lost way and stopped several feet from the shore. Now that they were under the turkey, or under where it should be, waves of tremors followed one another through Joey. He was entirely concentrated on the darkness above him. His eyes tried to make out the bulk of turkey, but it was still too dark to see very much. He forgot the mist and the cold and didn’t even notice the small movements of the bateau as Mr. Ben held it in position with twists of the paddle, but he could hear the uneven thumps of his heart.

Time crawled by, and almost imperceptibly the sky began to pale. Nearby twigs and branches slowly took on shape and texture and the eye moved higher as the tide of darkness withdrew, and then two rounded shapes, not one, about ten feet apart in the tree, could be seen against the paling sky.

Joey stared at one and then the other, puzzled, for they had heard and seen only one turkey fly up. It seemed impossible that another had joined it, for they had stayed until after dark; then it came to him that one of the shapes must be a squirrel nest. He turned to Mr. Ben, who was also staring up the tree. Mr. Ben felt the movement and dropped his glance to look back at him, and it was evident from the old man’s expression that he was confused too. He didn’t know which shape was the turkey; he had put the paddle down and picked up his gun, but he held it across his knees in indecision and shook his head. He sat for a moment longer, half raised the gun, and lowered it again, then he looked up at the sky.

He looked at Joey again and shook his head once more. He couldn’t make up his mind, and it was growing light more rapidly now; any instant the turkey might awake and launch itself from the tree. The nervous tension had built up inside Joey until he could hardly contain himself; he felt that he was going to explode and apparently Mr. Ben felt the same way, for he suddenly swept the gun up and pulled the trigger.

There was a shattering roar and the bateau bucked from the recoil; leaves and sticks flew from Mr. Ben’s target, and Joey had a confused and heartbreaking impression of the other shape suddenly sprouting great wings and vanishing from the limb. It was gone instantaneously, as though by a trick of magic; the limb was empty, leaves and sticks were raining through the trees, and the echoes of the shot were still bouncing thunderously around the Pond.

Mr. Ben slowly lowered the gun, laid it gently on the bottom of the bateau, and picked up his paddle. He didn’t look at Joey, and Joey, after a quick and stricken look at him, turned and picked up his own paddle. Without a word they headed toward the wharf.