Hardscrabble Road Read online

  With a sigh, he said, “Let’s get this over with.” We headed into the woods and took a path leading to one of the largest streams that drained into Spring Creek. Uncle Stan walked ahead of me, yanking off a leaf or two from the occasional saplings we passed. He kept the young green leaves balled in his fists.

  The trail curved among fifty-foot cedars, massive oaks, and slender pines. Reddish-brown needles and leaves carpeted the forest floor. The air held moisture from the mile-wide creek to our left and the fast-moving brook ahead of us. The old Foster place, an abandoned homestead, perched on the near bank of the “drain.” Long ago someone had made a ten-foot ladder from sturdy branches and bailing wire and set it against the shallow-pitched roof. Naked and dripping, Jay and Chet and other boys hollered as they jumped from the roof of the ramshackle house and plunged into the water. They climbed out downstream before the current took them into Spring Creek. Then they raced back to the ladder, clambered up, and dove off again.

  Papa stood on the bank, dressed in an old work shirt and overalls, the outfit he used to wear during baseball practices. “What the hell took you so long, Stan? You take Bud out for a snort first?”

  The leaves that Uncle Stan had squeezed into green pulp fell from his hands, He said, “Hey, Mance. What’re you fixing to do with him?” His thumb jabbed toward me.

  “You go downstream and we’ll have a catch.” Papa hopped down to the shore, disappearing from view.

  I followed Uncle Stan to the eroded embankment with its six-foot drop. The back of the Foster shack sat on the cliff edge. Three more boys splashed into the current below. My uncle jumped to the shore and sunk calf-deep in the mud before slogging into the water beside Papa. As I searched for a safer way to go, Papa said, “Goddammit, you shoulda throwed ’im down here.”

  I draped my shirt and overalls on a sweet-shrub and eased over the edge. Tree roots protruded from the cliff. Like a possum, my toes curled over slender wood and I started down, naked body pressed against the slimy wall.

  Papa called, “Birds got nests along there. Don’t let ’em think your muddy tallywhacker’s a worm. Heh, heh, heh.”

  Terrified, I jumped backward and sat down hard in black mud. Wading a little ways into the brook, I tried to wipe muck from the crannies where it had lodged. My brothers gave Tarzan yells as they sailed off the roof. Like cannonballs, they slammed into the stream, dousing me with spray.

  Uncle Stan flung his straw hat onto shore. He tromped past me and plunged into deeper water. With a few arching strokes and a couple of kicks, he was carried twenty yards downstream by the steady flow. He stood chest deep and leaned into the force of the current. Water streamed down his skin and drained from his clothes.

  While I watched my uncle, Papa grabbed me around my waist. He said, “Can’t learn if you’re daydreaming, boy.” He rocked me back, dragging my face through the water, and heaved me into the air. I soared, stretching my limbs as I sailed over the deep, clear brook. Then I fell like a gunshot quail.

  I landed in the water face-first, making a huge splash. The current tumbled me with a thousand forceful hands. I tried to open my eyes, but the water stung them too much. A pressure like two giant fingers against my eardrums kept me from hearing anything as I sank. My arms and legs flailed, and I bit my tongue to keep from trying to breathe. Blind and deaf and out of air, I twisted in the river. I expected to hit the bottom, but instead I surfaced, coughing out water and snot.

  Papa yelled, “Swim, Bud, swim.”

  As I gulped air, I pictured how my brothers and Uncle Stan had swum. I raised my right hand, arched it over my head, and slapped the water in front of me while I tried to get my legs kicking from behind. My feet sank as if someone clung to them. Writhing, I went under again and bubbles burst from my mouth and nose. My toes scraped the muddy bottom. Pushing upward sent me wheeling as the current spun me. This time I was going to die for sure.

  I hit a tree trunk. Some branches closed around me before my head and chest were jerked above the surface. My legs kicked against the stump as I sputtered.

  Uncle Stan said, “Breathe,” in the same command-voice he’d used for Viola.

  I sucked in air through my mouth since my nose still felt waterlogged. He held me until I’d stopped choking, and then he faced me upstream. I hadn’t drifted very far from Papa, maybe fifty feet. Still close enough to see—even through squinted, burning eyes—the disgust on his face.

  “Goddammit,” Papa spat, “I said swim, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, sir.” I hacked and gasped some more, making my throat even more raw.

  “Well if I have my druthers, I hope to see you drowned before I see you quit.”

  “I won’t quit.”

  Uncle Stan held my chest in one arm and raised my feet with the other. “I’ll keep you from sinking. Kick your legs while paddling your arms.” He guided me against the current and coached me. As I focused hard on keeping my limbs moving, he said, “You know, when you was drowning, that birthmark about disappeared. Your whole face was as red as a Radio Flyer.”

  “Thanks for catching me.”

  “Hell, Viola could do this job better’n me. Wanna know another thing?” He jiggled me in the water. “You don’t stutter when you’re choking.” When I laughed, he said, “Stick with your papa and he’ll make you just like everybody else. Ain’t that what you want?”

  “More’n anything.”

  He gave me a push, and I swam a dozen confident strokes before I started thinking too much. The current began to spin me and I splashed in panic.

  As I went under again, Papa grabbed my shoulders. “How ’bout you actually try this time.” He tossed me back downstream.

  I swam until my feet sank—then I tumbled and choked. Uncle Stan rescued me and gave me more tips while guiding me upstream. For the first time I could recall, he didn’t look hangdog. I thought he would’ve been eager to return home, but he stayed and taught me.

  After an hour of this, Papa called for a race. He lined me up alongside Jay and Chet. I had to hop from one foot to the other to keep from going under as my brothers stood in place, chest deep. Uncle Stan returned downstream and posted himself at the finish line. Papa shouted, “Go!” and we dove, spraying water in every direction. My muscles felt weak from all the exercise I’d gotten already, but I focused on Uncle Stan and swam toward him. Jay surged far ahead, but Chet caught up; they raced side by side while I struggled.

  A high-pitched squeal echoed behind me. I wondered if some boy had broken a bone jumping from the rooftop, but couldn’t pay any more attention. Jay and Chet had long since passed Uncle Stan and kept racing. I foundered, gasping and kicking, eyes swollen into slits from the water. My uncle had to be nearby. I knew he’d grab me at any moment—I was counting on him.

  My feet hit the muddy bottom before I realized that I’d drifted toward the far bank and could stand up. Behind me, the screeching now included laughter and splashes. I rubbed my eyes and blinked at Uncle Stan. He stood transfixed, as did Papa farther upstream. They watched two pretty teenage girls who swam and slapped water at each other. On the Foster rooftop, the oldest and loveliest of the young ladies posed in a homemade one-piece swimsuit of royal blue. Whistles, hooting, and shouts rose up from boys who’d put on their overalls before returning to the water. The girl swung her arms forward, hopped from her perch, and sliced into the stream, prompting the other kids to cheer.

  Another girl, younger but already stunning, appeared on the roof: Cecilia Turner. Her red-check swimsuit almost matched her auburn hair. She held up my shirt and overalls and shouted, “Somebody missing these?”

  Half-a-dozen boys crowed, “Bud!” and I hunkered down so far that wavelets tickled my nose. I couldn’t sink any lower without drowning.

  Cecilia shaded her eyes and peered up and down the brook. She called, “Where’s he at?”

  “Here!” Jay clamped his hand in one of my armpits while Chet grabbed the other and they yanked me out of the water almost to my shriveled gro
in. I kicked them and beat at their heads until they dropped me with a splash. Cecilia covered her face with my balled-up clothes as she bent over laughing. Everyone else roared with her. My brothers quickly fetched their duds, while Papa and Uncle Stan called it quits and headed home, separately.

  Cecilia sang out, “Bud, come and get them.” She disappeared from the rooftop, but screamed from the woods a minute later. “Bless God,” she cried to someone I couldn’t see. “You scared me half to death!” Shrubs rattled as she pushed through them on her way to the embankment, leaving my clothes behind. Reddening scrapes from the branches striped her fair arms and legs. She glanced back at the undergrowth and dove into the water. When she surfaced, she swam to where her girlfriends played, forgetting all about me.

  Through the same shrubs came an odd-looking boy. Limbs and leaves made no sound when he passed through; they seemed to part for him. The stranger was about my size and just as thin, with the browned face and arms of a country boy. He wore patched overalls and a too-big shirt with the sleeves rolled up past knobby elbows. A straw hat covered all of his hair except for uneven tar-black bangs. Something was wrong with the boy’s face. His narrow eyes looked lidless and the bridge of his nose was so slight that it almost disappeared when he looked upriver. My overalls and shirt dangled from his outstretched hands.

  I lurched across the brook, flailing more than swimming. On account of the girls, I stayed in waist-deep water and whispered up to where the boy stood on the bank. “Hey! Them’s mine.”

  He peered down at me. In a loud, high-pitched voice, he said, “Are you coming up here to get them?”

  The kid hadn’t called the others’ attention to me as I’d feared, but I still kept my voice low. “I c-can’t get out with them girls yonder.”

  “Do you want me to come down there?”

  “Well I reckon so.”

  The girls squealed, drawing the kid’s attention upriver. They splashed back at the boys who’d slapped water at them. The stranger said, “Could I throw them down to you instead?”

  “You always ask this m-many questions?”

  “My daddy says I have a questing mind.”

  “Do what?” A breeze had dried the water on my skin, leaving me chilled. I crossed my arms over the gooseflesh on my chest as I shivered. Narrowing my eyes in imitation of the boy, I stuttered, “You afraid of water? Ain’t you learned to swim yet?”

  “My daddy taught me never to be afraid of anything.” He pouted his lips. “You ask a lot of questions too, you know.”

  “Your mama ever do anything?”

  “She died when I was born.” He said it in the same way as everything else, another fact stored in his head.

  I apologized for my rudeness. To make up for that, I said, “Meet me downstream.” I felt the boy looking at me, so I tried to swim with grace, but my paddling became more frantic as my chin dipped below the water. A portion of the embankment jutted out enough to shield my climb, so I scrambled up tree roots and then used the bushes as a screen. The boy hadn’t met me with my outfit, so I shouted, “Hey, kid, where you at?”

  “Same place.”

  “You fixing to come here?”

  He said, “You know where I am, but I can’t see where you went. It’s logical for you to come to me.”

  “What’s lo-lo-logiwhatsis mean?”

  “It stands to reason. It makes sense. You sure don’t know many words for someone who asks more questions than I do.”

  Blood rose in my face and I stammered, “It’s just that you talk so funny.” I dodged between trees, making my way toward the boy. He watched me the whole time, studying me the way I peered at box turtles and bugs. I covered my groin with my hand as I walked and said, “What’chu l-looking at?”

  “Just looking. For a little boy you have a lot of muscles.”

  I put a large rhododendron between us, feeling unusually awkward about being naked. “Who you calling little, shrimp? You’re teenier than me.”

  “Do you work on a farm?”

  “‘Course I do. Don’t you?” The boy said no, so I asked, “Then how’d you g-get so much sunning?”

  “I study things outside all day. My daddy says I’ll be a botanist or entomologist or some other scientist.”

  “Now what’re you yammering about?”

  “I’m explaining to you why I’m suntanned, since you asked. Here—” He handed me my clothes. I used the shrub as a screen while I dressed. When I stepped into the path again, he said, “My name’s Ry Shepherd.”

  I introduced myself, telling him to call me Bud. Clothed but still feeling uneasy, I snapped, “What happened to your face?”

  “I just told you about my suntan.”

  “No, I mean your eyes and all.”

  He probed his skin from the black hairline to his small chin. His brow creased as he frowned at me. “Nothing happened to my face. What about yours?” Ry pointed at my port-wine stain.

  I punched him. That is, my fist shot forward, aimed at his nose—except that he wasn’t there anymore. The boy had sidestepped and I nearly fell over. “That’s dumb,” he said. “What’d you do that for?”

  Now with my pride doubly hurt, I swung at him again. This time, he snatched my arm as it sailed past him, grabbed the back of my shirt, and used my follow-through to tumble me into an elderberry bush. Leafy canes snapped all around me. As I rolled onto my hands and knees, Ry said, “You don’t make sense. Are you mad at me?”

  “Heck, yes, I am.” I staggered a little, still dizzy from the somersault. “You m-made fun of my b-birthmark.”

  “Oh, that’s what it is. I have some moles on my skin, but nothing like that. Does it hurt your face?”

  “Shut up about it!” I relaxed my fists and said, “How’d you throw me?”

  “It’s called judo. My daddy taught me. He learned it in Japan.”

  I sighed, exhausted by all the strange words. “What’s a Japan?”

  “A country of islands on the other side of the world. That’s where he met my mother.”

  “Did she have s-s-slitty eyes and a tiny beak too?”

  “You shouldn’t be mean, you know.”

  I liked that I’d found a way to hurt him, so I made my voice squeaky like his. “Does it hurt your face?”

  “Why are you like this?”

  I stammered, “You ain’t even from Miller County.”

  “My daddy was born here.” Ry tapped his lips with an index finger and asked, “Does your birthmark make you stutter like that?”

  After I missed him with another punch and he threw me again, I looked up at swirling treetops. I closed my eyes and said, “No. Th-th-they ain’t related.” I peeked at him as the spinning eased. “If your d-daddy’s from here, where you been hiding away?”

  “We live in San Antonio where Daddy teaches at the University of Texas.”

  “I heard of Texas.” I sat up and nearly puked. After swallowing hard, I said, “Why’re you here instead of Texas?”

  “Daddy’s traveling. I’m eight, old enough to go by bus to stay with Granny and Grandpa until he gets back. I memorized the bus schedules, transfers, and stops between San Antonio and Columbus, Georgia.”

  “I know where C-C-Columbus is, doggone it.”

  “Well, there’s also a Columbus, Ohio, and one in North Carolina and—”

  I held my head. “Shut up a minute, OK? Why do you t-talk so much?”

  “Can I touch your birthmark?”

  “I’ll clobber you if—” I stopped as cool fingertips stroked my right temple and eyebrow. My throbbing headache disappeared, as if drawn out by his hand. Though I was furious that he touched the port-wine stain, the soothing in my head had stilled me. I waited until he finished before I yelled, “I swannee, Ry, I’ll s-s-sock you if you do that again.”

  “I’m going to collect some more specimens. See you, Bud.” He lifted a burlap sack and walked away.

  I muttered at the receding figure, “I hope not.”

  CHAPTER 8
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br />   Every other Sunday, we went to the old home place where Grandma lived. My mother’s sisters and their families joined us there. Only two men stayed away: Uncle Stan and Papa. For reasons no one would tell me, Grandma had banned my uncle from the property. Papa stayed away just to be contrary.

  To get there, we hiked cross-country to a sandy trail that took us through miles of untamed fields bordered with pines and oaks. Mama led the way, swinging a basket packed with fried rounds of crackling-bread, fresh-churned butter, and strawberry jam she’d made in the spring. She didn’t trust me or my brothers, so she had Darlene carry the pasteboard box that held a fresh-baked blueberry pie.

  I brought along a pull-toy Jay had made for me. He’d fashioned it from a lidded syrup bucket that rolled on its side and was filled with clicking pebbles and sliding sand that he said made sounds like the ocean surf. Bailing wire ran through the flat ends of the bucket and joined up to form the handle. As I pulled it behind me, I searched the fields for the pink-scarred rabbit that was still gnawing Mama’s vegetables.

  Where two trails intersected, a rubbish heap sprawled. Lying amongst the trash mounds were mattresses burned up after TB victims had died upon them, busted wagon wheels and axles beyond repair, shattered crockery, maggot-infested waste, and blown-out car tires. My brothers each chose a rubber wheel to roll beside him.

  I ambled well in back of Darlene and Mama, listening to the sluice of sand and pebbles and daydreaming about what an ocean beach would look like. “Heads up,” Chet shouted. His tire rammed the back of my leg, knocking me flat. Cheering, he ran to pick up his wheel while I brushed sand from my overalls. As he bent over, Jay’s tire butted him like a goat.

  Mama looked over her shoulder. “You trip up me or your sister and you’ll wish to God you hadn’t.” She walked faster, putting Darlene behind her, and said, “Mind you don’t drop that dessert.”

  Darlene sighed. “Mama, why didn’t you have just girls?”

  “Honey-lamb, I shoulda stopped with you.”

  “But if I had a little sister, she could carry this-here pie.”