This Rock (11 page)

“How did Moody hurt hisself?” Muir asked.

I didn't feel like I could tell Muir, who was only thirteen and not liable to understand such things. If Moody didn't want it knowed and bruited about, I would say as little as I could and still tell the truth.

“Moody got in a fight in Chestnut Springs,” I said.

“Did Moody get cut with a knife?” Fay said.

“Maybe he did,” I said.

I never seen the cut on his groin because Moody wouldn't let me touch him. He wouldn't let anybody touch him. He was sixteen years old and tall as a man, and I couldn't tear his clothes off to see his wounds. He was like a dog that has crawled into a cellar to either die or heal itself. I reckon he might have wanted to die them first days and nights he was home.

I woke in the middle of the night and heard a sound like water running. Had it started raining in the night and the water was spilling off the eaves? I listened and didn't hear no rain on the roof. There wasn't no rain pattering on the window. The springhouse was too far away to hear the water spilling from the pipe. And the branch was much too far away to hear the water rippling and bubbling between its banks. You could hear the waterfall over on the creek sometimes at night, but this wasn't a roar like a waterfall.

The mumbling and murmuring stopped and then started again. I got up and put on my robe and went out to the hall. Muir was asleep on the couch and breathing steady. The sound was coming from the other end of the house, not the kitchen or living room. I tiptoed down the hall to the other bedroom door and listened. The noise was coming from there all right.

Was Moody talking to hisself? Would he be praying on his own in the dark? I put my ear to the door and my heart stopped when I heard a sob. It was a sob muffled by blankets. It was a sob held in as much as it could be held in. I couldn't go away and just leave Moody
crying to hisself in the dark. I opened the door and stepped into the room. The crying stopped.

“Moody,” I said, “is there anything I can do?”

There wasn't no sound from the bed. I reckon Moody laid as still as he could. I wanted to reach out and touch him in the dark. I wanted to hold him in my arms the way I done when he was a little boy. I felt my way to the edge of the bed and set down on it.

“I feel for your hurt,” I said.

“Don't matter,” Moody said, his voice hoarse.

“It matters a lot to me,” I said.

“Don't nothing matter no more,” Moody said, sounding like his nose was snuffed up.

I thought, This is a change in Moody. Now he is going to open up and talk about what happened to him. Now that he is letting out some of the pain, he'll feel better. I knowed the best way to heal the sorrow was to grieve hard as you could and tell somebody how bad it felt.

“You matter to us that love you,” I said and reached out to Moody in the dark. But soon as he felt my hand on his shoulder he jerked away. He covered hisself up with the blanket and wouldn't let me touch him.

I thought if I said the right thing to Moody I could pick the lock in his armor. I thought if I could melt just one little clot that was blocking the flow of his feelings, he would pour out his grief to me and begin to heal. But he never said another word. The more I tried to comfort him the more he closed hisself off. He had just spoke twice, then closed hisself up again like a terrapin. I seen there was no use to try to pester him or beg him to talk. He would have to decide to talk hisself. I set on the bed for nigh onto an hour and Moody never moved or spoke again.

A
FTER A FEW
days, when Moody was feeling a little better, I seen Muir carrying a pencil and piece of paper from a school tablet into the bedroom. When he come out I asked him what the page was for.

“Moody wants to write a letter,” Muir said.

Now Moody never was one to write letters, though he could pen
a fine neat hand when he wanted to. In school he had the best handwriting of anybody in the class, and he had the best hand of anybody in the family. I asked Muir who Moody wanted to write to, but Muir said he wouldn't tell. Muir said Moody had made him promise not to show anybody the letter.

I was curious because I thought Moody might be writing to the sheriff or the revenue or to Peg Early. I didn't try to ask Moody or Muir about the letter, but I kept my eyes open. Everything Moody did was a mystery, but I needed to find out what was going on. I didn't hear no more about the letter, and when I went into the bedroom that evening to take Moody his supper I didn't see the pencil or paper. But the next morning, when I passed Muir's coat where it hung on a nail beside the kitchen door, I seen an envelope in the pocket. I looked around to see if anybody was watching, and I slipped the envelope out. The address was wrote in pencil in Moody's neat hand.

To: Josie Revis

At Peg Early's

Chestnut Springs, South Carolina

I slipped the letter back into the coat pocket, careful to not bend or wrinkle it. My throat got tight, thinking of Moody writing to that girl that got so bad beat up for helping him and loving him. My heart felt like somebody had stomped it with their boots.

The week after Moody wrote the letter and Muir mailed it, I went to the mailbox every day to get the mail. There never was no letter from Josie, or anybody else, not that I seen. It's possible that Muir got up to the mailbox before I did and took whatever letter come for Moody, but I doubt it. I don't think Josie ever got his letter, and if she did she never answered it. If there had been a letter I would have seen it in the bedroom or throwed out in the trash. A letter might have cheered Moody up. But Moody just stayed sullen and angry and never did talk about his condition. He had scabs on his face and arms, and the scabs got hard and peeled off.

Now, both Drayton and Wheeler come to see Moody a time or two, and they could have brought Moody a letter without me seeing
it. But I don't think they did. If they had brought a letter Moody would have acted different.

What they did bring Moody was a drink, for when I went into the bedroom after they left I could smell it. It was that musty smell of old plums that has fell into the grass and rotted. And Moody seemed a little happier. He must have had the bottle in the bed, for I couldn't find it when I come in to sweep the floor and dust the shelf. I opened the curtains to let sunlight fill the sickroom, and I swept the dust balls from under the bed. I reckon he had the bottle under his pillow or between his legs, for I never did see it.

When Drayton come back to see Moody, I pulled him into the kitchen. “Now you ain't going to give Moody no liquor, are you? He don't need no liquor.”

“No ma'am,” Drayton said. But the next time I went into the room the smell of liquor was even stronger. I figured the liquor might be helping Moody get well, so I let it go.

After about a week Moody got up and started walking. He walked stiff like his joints was made of cardboard. And it hurt him to set down, I could see that. He winced and grabbed hold of the arms when he set down in the rocker. But he limped out to the porch and back, and then out to the barn and back. He limped as far as the springhouse. He must have had some liquor hid out there, for I could smell it on his breath when he come back in. But there was never no letter come for him.

Muir

I
T SURPRISED ME
as my foot healed to see how helpful Fay was. She brought me coffee, and she brought me dinner where I set in the chair. She had always seemed to favor Moody before, but I reckon my sprained foot made her feel friendly toward me. Before, she had just teased me and made fun of my drawings and my planning. Maybe she was just growing up a little. But she was still so skinny she didn't fill out the new dresses Mama made her.

When she drove to town with Moody in the Model T, Fay bought me a tablet of drawing paper and some colored pencils at the dime store.

“Now you can draw a castle in Alaska,” Fay said, “or maybe a tower like the one Rapunzel is locked in.”

For several days I sketched plan after plan, until my foot was well enough to hobble on.

I'd been thinking about how I was going to get back to my traps. The Model T was half mine. I'd paid a hundred dollars on it, all the money I'd saved from selling pelts and ginseng the year before. Moody didn't have but seventy-five dollars and Mama had paid for the rest. It was my car and Mama's car as much as it was his, but
because Moody was older and because he'd learned to drive first, he got to use the car more than me. The Model T set in the shed by the crib where we used to keep our buggy, and whenever he felt like it, Moody cranked the car up and drove down to Chestnut Springs to get liquor or to gamble in one of the joints there. Sometimes he come back with another black eye or a cut on his face or arm.

By Saturday I could walk pretty good on my right foot. It itched and was sore a little. I could get around, but there was no way I could walk all the way to Grassy Creek and back. I seen that what I should do was drive the Model T to Blue Ridge Church or Cedar Mountain. From there I could walk the two or three miles to the creek and check all my traps, or at least some of them. And it was better to go on Saturday and not wait till Monday, when whatever was in the traps would be in even worse condition.

When I told Moody I was going to take the car, he said, “You ain't, no way in hell.”

“That car's half mine,” I said.

“I've got to go to Chestnut Springs,” Moody said.

“You go to Chestnut Springs every Saturday,” I said.

“And I'm going this Saturday too,” Moody said.

“I have to check my trapline,” I said.

“Then you walk it, little brother.”

“I paid more on that car than you did,” I said.

“I'm the driver of this car,” Moody said.

“You think nobody but you can drive it?” I said.

Moody looked me hard in the eye. “That car is going to Chestnut Springs,” he said.

“Not on Saturday,” I said. I was as big as Moody now, and I was determined not to let him run over me no more.

S
ATURDAY MORNING WHEN
I went out to start the Model T I seen all the tires was flat. The casings had been slashed with a knife. I looked at the tires, and I looked at the patching kit. Even if I took the tires off to patch the inner tubes there was only three cold patches left.

When I went back to the house and told Mama what had happened
she set her mouth in a grimace and shook her head. “The devil is having his way with Moody,” she said.

“Moody is the devil,” I said.

“He gets mad and can't help hisself,” Mama said. Like any mama, she always tried to see the good in her children. When Moody done something bad she always said it was because he couldn't control hisself. I figured he was mean because he wanted to be.

Moody was nowhere to be found. He must have left early in the morning to walk down to Chestnut Springs, or he might have got a ride with one of his buddies like Wheeler Stepp or Drayton Jones.

“What are you going to do?” Fay said. It scared her when me and Moody got in a fuss, but it also seemed to thrill her a little.

“Somebody ought to teach Moody a lesson,” I said.

“Don't talk like that,” Mama said. “Moody is your brother. He needs your prayers, not a fight. Forgiveness is the test of a Christian. Moody has got anger in him. He blames the world, and he blames me.”

“Don't matter how he got that way,” I said.

M
OODY WAS GONE
all that Saturday. I thought he must have walked to Chestnut Springs or Gap Creek with one of his buddies. It was a mystery where he got money for liquor and gambling and carousing at the joints in South Carolina. Except for selling molasses and a few eggs for Mama, he never did anything to raise cash. But he always seemed to have enough in his pockets to get what he wanted, and he was gone a lot.

I spent all morning patching three of the tires while Fay walked down to U. G.'s store to sell some eggs and get new patches. I could have rode the horse down to the store, but it was better not to jump on or off the horse with my ankle still stiff and sore. I always hated patching tubes because of the stink of the rubber and the glue. I was slow at it and had to keep reading directions on the box. As I worked I got madder, thinking of what I was going to do to Moody when he come back.

Setting out in the sun where I could see the rubber better, I found the knife cuts in the tubes and one by one stuck the pink patches over
the slits. But when I got the first one done and fitted the tube in the casing, and the casing over the wheel, and tried to pump it up, the tube still hissed air. Had to take it off and find the extra slit, put another patch on that, and try all over again. I got so mad I throwed the patches and the inner tube into the weeds, then had to crawl around on my knees in the stubble to find all the pieces.

By the time the tires was fixed it was late afternoon, too late to drive to the Flat Woods and check my traps before dark. Hard enough to see traps and reset them in daylight, much less after dark with a stiff, healing ankle.

Soon as I got the tires fixed I heard somebody walk into the yard. Turning around, I seen it was Moody. He'd been drinking. I could tell by the glitter in his eyes and the way he walked.

“I'm surprised you got gall enough to show your face,” I said.

“Now hold it,” he said and waved his arm like he was trying to slow down an oncoming car.

“Ain't you a fine son of a bitch,” I said.

“Now just hold on,” Moody said.

“You have showed your ass,” I said.

“I know, I'm just a dog,” Moody said. “Ain't nothing but a dog.” He didn't show any fight like I expected. He was good and drunk and loose as a rag doll.

“You ought to have your ass kicked from here to the river,” I said. I looked to see if he had a knife in his hand.

“Here, kick it, go ahead,” Moody said. He unbuckled his overalls and pulled them down and turned his bare hind end to me.