Nightwoods - Charles Frazier [27]
NEXT MORNING, STUBBLEFIELD rounded the bend past the barn and the corncrib, both time-blanched and sagging toward earth.
Sad disrepair, yes indeed.
So he expected more sadness when the house came into view. But it never did. Where it should have been, a big empty space of air shaped itself in Stubblefield’s mind exactly like his grandparents’ house, except invisible. And below that, a black circle of ash and charcoal on the ground, surrounded by unmowed grass. A few burnt stubs of roof joists pitched at low angles to the sky. Century-old oak trees in the yard, their leaves scorched on the sides facing the empty space. Boxwoods all burned down to nubs beside eight sooty stone steps climbing to nowhere.
Stubblefield parked in the j-hole by the gate and walked to the edge of the burn. He squatted and studied the circle where better than a century of life had happened, some of it his own. The ashes at the edge lay soft and light and pale. Every hint of breeze puffed up a mist of ash that seemed to Stubblefield like the contents of a cremation urn tossed to the wind. He reached deep to throw another fistful into the air, but drew his hand back fast and empty. Burnt. Still damn hot down in there. He quickstepped to the singed springhouse and soaked his hand in the cold clear water rising from deep underground flows.
CHAPTER 7
LATE DAYS OF SUMMER. A social occasion in a raw new clearing at the edge of town, the margin where everything turned to jungle and sloped steep to the high peaks. A couple dozen vehicles parked between the bulldozed ground and the road. Chevys and Fords mostly. A few outlier cars, like a low-slung Hudson coupe and a tiny pink-and-white Nash Metropolitan, and even a weird pale yellow Vauxhall. Also the worn-out green pickup with sideboards.
A full moon peeped over the ridges to the east, and the sky was dark enough to show one bright planet. But plenty of light left for shooting. Everybody stood around with pistols in their hands, hats on their heads, and cigarettes drooping from their mouths. Men in jeans and flannel and khaki in front of a red clay bank still showing teeth marks from the D6 blade. Lots of beer, and a few nostalgic mason jars of corn liquor. Burnt matchsticks pinned paper targets to the bank. White background with thin black concentric circles around a dense black center hole. Their rows against the red wall looked modern and artlike. Or to another turn of mind, not at all artlike. More like problems in geometry class requiring a solution, and the correct answer was a perfect empty hole through the black dead center.
Bud, new to town and drawn to congregation, had driven by and then turned around and parked. He mingled about, hoping to overhear gossip about Lily’s family and where the kids might be, having already struck out earlier at the barbershop and the pool hall. In short order, he became more than half drunk on handouts of beer and a very generous paper cup of Wild Turkey.
He lacked a gun, but that didn’t stop the bully in him from needing an airing. He walked over to a short slim man with a sweaty Pabst in his left hand and a big .45 like a brick in his right. The little man leaned against its weight. Bud said the first thing that popped into his head.
—Hey Lit, some of these old boys say your feet’s so small you buy shoes in children’s sizes at the store that sells Florsheims.
Lit smiled, raised his eyebrows, and sipped his beer. He moved up real close into Bud’s air. Inches apart. The top of his head level with Bud’s collarbones.
—Which ones say that?
Bud took one involuntary step back. He said, Nobody.
—Nobody said it? You just took a flying fuck of a guess at my name and where I buy my shoes?
—Somebody might of said something. I don’t recollect all the specifics. It was