The Sound of the Trees (3 page)

The boy watched her thin silhouette against the water while he put his mare and mule up. Her flickering shadow commingled with the shadows of the olive trees and for a moment he could not discern limb from limb, tree from mother, as though the coming night meant to show him that in this world all becomes darkness, equal and without end.

He took a roll of cotton twine from his rucksack and cut a piece with his knife. He pried loose a tack nail from one of Triften's shoes and bent it and tied it upon the string. From another parcel of wax paper he took a slice of roasted chili pepper and slid it upon the nail and finally went down to the river and sat next to his mother.

He looked at her from the corner of his eye. She dipped her hands in the water and rubbed the base of her neck with one hand, supporting her body upright with the other. The boy turned back to the river and dropped the line into the black water.

I never meant for him to hurt you like he did.

The boy did not move at her voice but kept looking straight at his line dipping in and out of sight. Wasn't any easier for you than it was for me, he said.

His mother turned away, looking long into the dark rustling grove. But you were his only son, she said.

Hell Ma, I know it. And it ain't fair and it ain't right and God knows it ruined us in that country but we're loose of him now. Shit, he said.

She turned to face him now. She wiped her eyes down with the back of her hand. Don't you cuss like that, Trude.

Shit Ma, the boy said, meeting her eyes. It ain't the cussin that's bad for us.

The boy came upon luck in the river. He pulled up two killfish and a fat trout all brightly colored and he shucked them from their skin and cleaned them and tossed the severed heads into the fire he had made by the riverbank.

The boy's mother moved closer to the fire. By the time the fish were prepared her eyes had lightened and she had stopped shivering. The ash from the piñon branches flavored the fish well and they said how well it tasted and ate everything before them with a hunger neither had noticed before. After a while the boy rose with his tin cup and walked to the river, calling back to his mother as he went.

Big old place, Silver City. Ain't it?

Yes it is.

The boy returned with a cupful of river water. He sipped at it, then set it down and rolled a cigarette and gazed off at the city lights in the north.

Your father and me used to go up there in the summer when he was courting me. The boy's mother spoke into her hands that were gripped together and resting on her crossed ankles. They have this wonderful plaza with open carts and the like, she said. And they feed you and let you drink free on this particular week and the folks are fancy-dressed but nice. Charming, your father used to say. He used to walk around and nod and bow, all the while saying Charming, and that made some people laugh but not everyone.

Her eyes darkened upon the fire.

He could never settle on happy. He had somethin in him that said, It ain't enough, Hatley. It ain't enough to be happy. I don't know, she said, her hands going up to her hair.

Well, Mama. I don't know either.

The boy got up and washed out their tinware in the river. When he came back he helped his mother lay out their bedrolls, and soon after they laid themselves down on either side of the fire. No other riders chanced upon them all evening long. Way off in the distance when the breeze was gone the boy thought he could hear trucks motoring in the gravel washes on the outskirts of the city. Every once and again a piñon branch would pop in the fire and the boy would start up with his hand on the Colt revolver he had placed beside him.

When he was near asleep his mother leaned up on her elbows and whispered across the flames. You think he'll hunt us?

The boy rolled onto his shoulder and faced his mother with his eyes still closed. I don't know. Then he opened his eyes upon her. She was craning her neck out to better see him through the fire. No, he said. He's gone.

He paused at her eyes and would have turned back to lie down again but for something moving in the quiet of them. He straightened slightly on his forearms. She held his gaze there for a moment, then lay flat on her back, her eyes wide to the thickening stars.

Yes, she whispered almost inaudibly, I believe he's gone.

*   *   *

THE FOLLOWING DAY
they breached the high country. Climbing upon the sand hills that outlined the city they passed a group of cowpunchers the boy had seen at dawn. All touched their hats as they rode up. They spat tobacco juice over the knobs of their shoulders and spoke nothing of the day or of their business but only nodded solemnly as if further transaction could only cause confusion, and rode on.

On the other side of the hills the landscape began to bloom like wildfire. Long tufts of buffalo grass rolled into orchards of apple. In a field to the east a woman bent over among the trees, tipping a water bucket at their roots. They came across a diversion dam at the river's head and they passed over fields of corn and chili and acres of cherry trees. When the boy upstepped the mare to his mother's side he saw that she was smiling.

They rode to the head of town on the main avenue where trucks were cranking and moving in and out of the side streets. As they walked the horses toward the general store a truck slipped from an alley and came barreling toward them. The horses reared up and the boy's mother's roan stammered back. She rose up on her hind legs and whinnied high and wild. A few women on the street turned, watching with clear amazement this thin bescraggled woman lofted high into the air, her hands on the reins drawn up over her head and her bone-peaked face as chiseled as a knot of walnut.

The truck squelched its brakes and swerved around them. As it passed the driver shook his head and peered at the boy who was turning Triften down and hepping her to his mother's side. The driver flung a cigarette butt out the open window, then drove on.

Whoa, the boy called. Whoa now.

He came down from Triften and eased his mother's horse. The horse was sweating and his mother too. She put a hand on the boy's shoulder to steady herself.

I sure don't remember this place movin so fast, she said. I'll be damned if he didn't drive like your father.

Come on down, the boy said.

They hobbled the horses and mule at the side of the general store and walked out into the road. The city was bustling. Men swayed through the streets in black vests and starched white linen cuffs and women sat in the shade of the storefronts nursing bottles of soda. The boy studied their appearances, the brown briefcases the men carried and the small round hats they wore and the way they tipped them tersely when they passed one another. It seemed to him an altogether other world. The boy's mother jogged up to his side and took his arm with one hand and with the other leaned into him, clinging tightly to the shirt at his stomach.

*   *   *

The barroom they sat in was dark, and what little light passed through the shutters shone like slatted beams of steel. The waitress who tended them was tall and lean in the manner of the coastal Mexicans with black eyes and a face like a hawk.

You all just get to town? she asked in a stilted voice.

Yes, his mother said flatly. She was watching the girl watch the boy.

From whereabouts, if you don't mind bein asked?

The boy's mother looked at her son. He smiled at her a little, then went to looking out the window at the city street.

Down by Hurley, she said.

That's a tough little stretch from how I understand it, the waitress went on, speaking more like a Texan than a Mexican girl.

A telephone rang from behind the bar and the waitress put up a finger.

I'll be right with you all, she said.

She brought them huevos rancheros and a pitcher of buttermilk. The boy picked at his eggs and went on squinting and watching the trucks out on the street.

When his father had saved enough money to buy the truck, the boy remembered how proud he had been to get the first one in town, how he washed it by hand every Wednesday night after the town council meetings when he was still a councilman, his big-knuckled hands plunging into the bucket of hot water and soap and the delight he took in squeezing the sponge over the yellow hood. He remembered also and more vividly the days when the truck had become overworked by the rutted roads and overwhelmed by rust, and how instead of attending the town meetings and washing the truck under the porch lamp, he took to sitting alone on the front stoop, a bottle between his knees and his knees held close to his chest. How he sat there without expression, without response to his wife calling from the kitchen to come in and eat something, but hauling into his lap a handful of gravel, which he would pick from and launch toward the road anytime a new and fine-looking truck raised up dust in front of the house and passed him by.

His mother regarded the boy's averted face, then reached across the table for his hands. He's gone, right? she said.

The boy turned to her, his face blank but for the light in his pale blue eyes. Yeah, he said. Yeah, Mama. He is.

When they'd finished their meal the boy ordered two cups of coffee from the waitress. For a long time the boy's mother moved a spoon through her coffee, nor did she look up from it. Where do we cross? she finally asked.

Cross what?

Cross over to Colorado.

The boy folded his hands and rested his elbows on the table and thought about it.

I think by Quemado Lake. Up near Apache Mountain. Thing of it is, I don't know for sure where the lake is when you come over the mountains. It's the one thing I can't yet figure out. But I know for a fact it's a good place to cross. Easiest country. It's still a good way from there to Colorado, but once we get there it's the best track to follow north.

He sipped from the mug of coffee and set it down and took a cigarette from his breast pocket and lit it and flushed out the match by his side. You know where it is?

His mother shook her head.

Shit, he said.

They drank their coffee. The waitress returned to check on them. The boy asked her if she knew where the lake was but she said she did not. He asked if the proprietor was around. She nodded and went to the back of the room where she yelled out for a man she called Big Heff, jutting a thumb back toward the boy and his mother.

The man raised his chin and gave a final swipe of his dishrag across the tabletop he was standing over and started across the room.

You wouldn't know where Quemado Lake was, would you? the boy asked.

I sure do. The proprietor took the dishrag from his shoulder and it disappeared in the mitt of his hand after he ran it over his sweating forehead. Pretty country up there once you get through the mountains. Them mountains is downright treacherous. You takin the train?

No sir, the boy said. We're riding.

The proprietor fingered a great slab of scar tissue above his temple where it appeared a knife had gone through. Horses? he said.

Yes sir.

The proprietor looked at the boy then out the window, turning his head to reveal the pink hairless gash. The boy's mother quickly turned away. Well. Horses? he said again.

The boy nodded.

Truly treacherous then, Big Heff said. Truly.

He rubbed at the scar more furiously, turning once to the waitress and snapping his fingers at her and pointing to a table where three men in gray button-up suits had just sat down.

Well, the boy said. Where is it, did you say?

Oh. The proprietor unballed the rag from his hand and slung it back up on his shoulder. It's up by San Juan County, he said. That's a long way off.

The proprietor studied the boy's mother again. He stopped working the scar and leaned down and put both fists upon the table. You all sure you want to ride it? You got enough provisions? He kept his eyes upon the boy's mother. I mean to say, it's already hittin on winter up there, and it gets cold. It'll be getting cold up there right soon.

I know it, the boy said. She does too. We'll be fine sir. I thank you.

The proprietor looked back and forth at the boy and his mother once more and said Anytime. Then he walked off with his hand upon the scar and his head slightly shaking.

San Juan County, the boy said.

He turned back to his mother with his hands atop his gloves.

Do you know how far that is? she asked him.

I know McKinely County is just south of it and that's a good two-week ride. Maybe longer.

When his mother did not reply the boy looked up at her. With that light so stark on her face and its wide lines and rivulets glistening in the sun, he thought how old she looked sitting there. Sitting there with her son about the same age as her husband when they married and him left behind and her without man or country, and he hoped that she did not worry about him for he felt he was burdened with enough worry for both of them. Maybe we should put you on a train, he said.

His mother raised up and shook her head. From her back pocket she took the red scarf she used to wear when she hung out the linens and wiped a ball of dirt impatiently from the corner of her eye.

We don't got the money, Trude. Besides, I ain't leavin you alone. She placed her fingers around her coffee mug and stared at them. You're all I got left, she said. She took her hands away and leaned back. Anyways, we surely can't afford to pay both our ways unless we up and sold the horses and probably a good part of our gear.

The boy's grip flexed and slackened around the gloves. Triften, he whispered. Shit. You know I can't.

She took his hands and leaned across the table.

Yes, she said. And you know what else I know? I wouldn't let you if you tried.

The boy worked a smile onto his face.

I just wish I would've went and tried to get the truck from Pa. It could have at least got us up a ways.

It'll be alright, his mother said, rubbing his thick hard hands in the small softness of her own.