Child of God Read online

  Where celluloid goldfish bobbed in a tank he leaned with his dipnet and watched the other fishers. An attendant took the fish from their nets and read the numbers on their undersides and shook his head no or reached down a small kewpie or a plaster cat. While he was so occupied an old man next to Ballard was trying to steer two fish into his dipnet at the same time. They would not fit and the old man grown impatient steered them to the edge of the tank and with a sweep of the net splashed fish and water down the front of a woman standing next to him. The woman looked down. The fish were lying in the grass. You must be crazy, she said. Or drunk one. The old man gripped his net. The attendant leaned to them. What's the matter here, he said.

  I didn't do nothin, said the old man.

  Ballard was dipping up fish and dumping them back, studying the numbers on the prizes. The woman with the wet dress pointed at him. That man yonder is cheatin, she said.

  Okay buddy, said the attendant, reaching for his net. You get one for a dime, three for a quarter.

  I ain't got one yet, said Ballard.

  You've done put back a dozen.

  I ain't got one, said Ballard, holding his net.

  Well get one and look at the rest.

  Ballard shrugged up his shoulders and eyed the fish. He dipped one up.

  The attendant took the fish and looked at it. No winner, he said, and pitched the fish back in the tank and took the net from Ballard.

  I might not be done playin, said Ballard.

  And then again you might, said the attendant.

  Ballard gave the man a cold cat's look and spat in the water and turned to go. The lady who'd been splashed was watching him with a half fearful look of vindication. As Ballard went past he spoke to her through his teeth. You a busynosed old whore, ain't ye? he said.

  He stirred as he went the weight of dimes in the toe of his pocket. Riflefire guided him, a muted sound that he sorted from among the cries of barkers and pitchmen. A busy booth with longlegged boys crouched at the counter. Across the back of the gallery mechanical ducks tottered and creaked and the rifles cracked and spat.

  Step right up, step right up, test your skill and win a prize, sang the shooting gallery man. Yes sir, how about you?

  I'm studyin it, said Ballard. What do ye get?

  The pitchman pointed with his cane to rows of stuffed animals in ascending size. The bottom row, he said ...

  Never mind them, said Ballard. What do you have to do to get them big'ns yonder.

  The pitchman pointed to small cards on a wire. Shoot out the small red dot, he said in a singsong voice. You have five shots in which to do it and you take your choice of any prize in the house.

  Ballard had his dimes out. How much is it? he said.

  Twenty-five cents.

  He laid three dimes on the counter. The pitchman stood a rifle up and slid a brass tube of shells into the magazine. It was a pump rifle and it was fastened to the counter by a chain.

  Ballard put the nickel in his pocket and raised the rifle.

  Elbow rests permitted, sang the pitchman.

  I don't need no rest, said Ballard. He fired five times, lowering the rifle between rounds. When he was done he pointed aloft. Let me have that there big bear, he said.

  The pitchman trolleyed the little card down a wire and unpinned it and handed it to Ballard. All of the red must be removed from the card to win, he said. He was looking elsewhere and didn't even seem to be talking to Ballard.

  Ballard took the card in his hand and looked at it. You mean this here? he said.

  All of the red must be removed.

  Ballard's card had a single hole in the middle of it. Along one edge of the hole was the faintest piece of red lint.

  Why hell fire, said Ballard. He slapped three more dimes on the counter. Step right up, said the pitchman, loading the rifle.

  When the card came back you could'nt have found any red on it with a microscope. The pitchman handed down a ponderous mohair teddybear and Ballard slapped down three dimes again.

  When he had won two bears and a tiger and a small audience the pitchman took the rifle away from him. That's it for you, buddy, he hissed.

  You never said nothin about how many times you could win.

  Step right up, sang the barker. Who's next now. Three big grand prizes per person is the house limit. Who's our next big winner.

  Ballard loaded up his bears and the tiger and started off through the crowd. They lord look at what all he's won, said a woman. Ballard smiled tightly. Young girls' faces floated past, bland and smooth as cream. Some eyed his toys. The crowd was moving toward the edge of a field and assembling there, Ballard among them, a sea of country people watching into the dark for some midnight contest to begin.

  A light sputtered off in the field and a bluetailed rocket went skittering toward Canis Major. High above their upturned faces it burst, sprays of lit glycerine flaring across the night, trailing down the sky in loosely falling ribbons of hot spectra soon burnt to naught. Another went up, a long whishing sound, fishtailing aloft. In the bloom of its opening you could see like its shadow the image of the rocket gone before, the puff of black smoke and ashen trails arcing out and down like a huge and dark medusa squatting in the sky. In the bloom of light too you could see two men out in the field crouched over their crate of fireworks like assassins or bridgeblowers. And you could see among the faces a young girl with candyapple on her lips and her eyes wide. Her pale hair smelled of soap, womanchild from beyond the years, rapt below the sulphur glow and pitchlight of some medieval fun fair. A lean skylong candle skewered the black pools in her eyes. Her fingers clutched. In the flood of this breaking brimstone galaxy she saw the man with the bears watching her and she edged closer to the girl by her side and brushed her hair with two fingers quickly.

  BALLARD HAS COME IN FROM the dark dragging sheaves of snowclogged bracken and he has fallen to crushing up handfuls of this dried or frozen stuff and cramming it into the fireplace. The lamp in the floor gutters in the wind and wind moans in the flue. The cracks in the wall lie printed slantwise over the floorboards in threads of drifted snow and wind is shucking the cardboard windowpanes. And Ballard has come with an armload of beanpoles purloined from the barnloft and he is at breaking them and laying them on.

  When he has the fire going he pulls off his brogans and stands them on the hearth and he pulls the wadded socks from his toes and lays them out to dry. He sits and dries the rifle and ejects the shells into his lap and dries them and wipes the action and oils it and oils the receiver and the barrel and the magazine and the lever and reloads the rifle and levers a shell into the chamber and lets the hammer down and lays the rifle on the floor beside him.

  The cornbread he has baked in the fire is a crude mush of simple meal and water. A flat tasteless crust that he chews woodenly and washes down with water. The two bears and the tiger watch from the wall, their plastic eyes shining in the firelight and their red flannel tongues out.

  THE HOUNDS CROSSED THE snow on the slope of the ridge in a thin dark line. Far below them the boar they trailed was tilting along with his curious stifflegged lope, highbacked and very black against the winter's landscape. The hounds' voices in that vast and pale blue void echoed like the cries of demon yodelers.

  The boar did not want to cross the river. When he did so it was too late. He came all sleek and steaming out of the willows on the near side and started across the plain. Behind him the dogs were falling down the mountainside hysterically, the snow exploding about them. When they struck the water they smoked like hot stones and when they came out of the brush and onto the plain they came in clouds of pale vapor.

  The boar did not turn until the first hound reached him. He spun and cut at the dog and went on. The dogs swarmed over his hindquarters and he turned and hooked with his razorous tushes and reared back on his haunches but there was nothing for shelter. He kept turning, enmeshed in a wheel of snarling hounds until he caught one and drove upon it and pinned and disemboweled it. When
he went to turn again to save his flanks he could not.

  Ballard watched this ballet tilt and swirl and churn mud up through the snow and watched the lovely blood welter there in its holograph of battle, spray burst from a ruptured lung, the dark heart's blood, pinwheel and pirouette, until shots rang and all was done. A young hound worried the boar's ears and one lay dead with his bright ropy innards folded upon the snow and another whined and dragged himself about. Ballard took his hands from his pockets and took up the rifle from where he had leaned it against a tree. Two small armed and upright figures were moving down along the river, hurrying against the fading light.

  IN THE SMITH'S SHOP DIM and near lightless save for the faint glow at the far end where the forge fire smoldered and the smith in silhouette hulked above some work. Ballard in the door with a rusty axehead he'd found.

  Mornin, said the smith.

  Mornin.

  What can I do for ye?

  I got a axe needs sharpenin.

  He crossed the dirt floor to where the smith stood above his anvil. The walls of the building were hung with all manner of implements. Pieces of farm machinery and motorcars lay strewn everywhere.

  The smith thrust his chin forward and looked at the axehead. That it? he said.

  That's it.

  The smith turned the axehead in his hand. Won't do ye no good to grind this thing, he said.

  Won't?

  What ye aim to use for a handle?

  Get one, I reckon.

  He held the axehead up. You cain't just grind a axe and grind it, he said. See how stobby it's got?

  Ballard saw.

  You want to wait a minute I'll show ye how to dress a axe that'll cut two to one against any piece of shit you can buy down here at the hardware store brand new.

  What'll it cost me?

  You mean with a new handle and all.

  Yeah, with a new handle.

  Cost ye two dollars.

  Two dollars.

  That's right. Handles is a dollar and a quarter.

  I allowed I'd just get it sharpened for a quarter or somethin.

  You never would be satisfied with it, said the smith.

  I can get a new one for four dollars.

  I'd better to have thisn and it right than two new ones.

  Well.

  Tell me somethin.

  All right.

  The smith stuck the axe in the fire and gave the crank a few turns. Yellow flames spat out from under the blade. They watched.

  You want to keep your fire high, said the smith. Three or four inches above the tuyer iron. You want to lay a clean fire with good coal that's not laid out in the sun.

  He turned the axehead with his tongs. You want to take your first heat at a good yeller and work down. That there ain't hot enough. He had raised his voice to make these observations although the forge made no sound. He cranked the lever again and they watched the fire spit.

  Not too fast, said the smith. Slow. That's how ye heat. Watch ye colors. If she chance to get white she's ruint. There she comes now.

  He drew the axehead from the fire and swung it all quivering with heat and glowing a translucent yellow and laid it on the anvil.

  Now mind how ye work only the flats, he said, taking up his hammer. And start on the bit. He swung the hammer and the soft steel gave under the blow with an odd dull ring. He hammered out the bit on both sides and put the blade back in the fire.

  We take another heat on her only not so high this time. A high red color will do it. He laid the tongs on the anvil and passed both palms down hard over his apron, his eyes on the fire. Watch her well, he said. Never leave steel in the fire for longer than it takes to heat. Some people will poke around at somethin else and leave the tool they're heatin to perdition but the proper thing is to fetch her out the minute she shows the color of grace. Now we want a high red. Want a high red. Now she comes.

  He tonged the axehead to the anvil again, the bit a deep orange color with pins of bright heat breaking on it.

  See now do ye hammer her back from the bit on the second heat.

  The hammer striking with that sound not quite metallic.

  About a inch back. See how she flares. Let her get wide as a shovel if it takes it but never lay your hammer to the edges or you'll take out the muscle you put in on the flats.

  He hammered steady and effortless, the bit cooling until the light of it faded to a faintly pulsing blood color. Ballard glanced about the shop. The smith laid the bit on the hardy and with a sledge clipped off the flared edges. That's how we take the width down, he said. Now one more heat to make her tough.

  He placed the blade in the fire and cranked the handle. We take a low heat this time, he said. Just for a minute. Just so ye can see her shine will do. There she is.

  Now hammer her down both sides real good. He beat with short strokes. He turned the head and worked the other side. See how black she gets, he said. Black and shiny like a nigger's ass. That packs the steel and makes it tough. Now she's ready to harden.

  They waited while the axe heated. The smith took a splayed cigarstub from his apron pocket and lit it with a coal from the forge. We just want to heat the part we've worked, he said. And the lower a heat ye can harden at the better she'll be. Just a low cherry red is about right. Some people want to quench in oil but water tempers at a lower heat. A little salt to soften the water. Soft water, hard steel. Now she comes and mind how when ye take her up and dip, dip north. Bit straight down, thisaway. He lowered the quaking blade into the quenchbucket and a ball of steam rose. The metal hissed for an instant and was quiet. The smith dunked it up and down. Cool it slow and it won't crack, he said. Now. We polish it and draw the temper.

  He brightened the bit with a stick wrapped in emery cloth. Holding the head in the tongs he began to move it slowly back and forth over the fire. Keep her out of the fire and keep her movin. That way she'll draw down even. Now she's gettin yeller. That's fine for some tools but we goin to take a blue temper on her. Now she gets brown. Watch it now. See it there?

  He took the axehead from the fire and laid it on the anvil. You got to watch her close and not let the temper run out on the corners first. Shape ye fire for the job always.

  Is that it? said Ballard.

  That's it. We'll just fit ye a handle now and sharpen her and you'll be on your way.

  Ballard nodded.

  It's like a lot of things, said the smith. Do the least part of it wrong and ye'd just as well to do it all wrong. He was sorting through handles standing in a barrel. Reckon you could do it now from watchin? he said.

  Do what, said Ballard.

  HE LAUNCHED HIMSELF down the slope, slewed up in snow to his thighs, wallowing in the drifts with the rifle held overhead in one hand. He caught himself on a grapevine and swung about and came to a stop. A shower of dead leaves and twigs fell over the smooth mantle of snow. He fetched debris from out of his shirtcollar and looked down the slope to find another stopping place.

  When he reached the flats at the foot of the mountain he found himself in scrub cedar and pines. He followed rabbit paths through these woods. The snow had thawed and frozen over again and there was a light crust on top now and the day was very cold. He entered a glade and a robin flew. Another. They held their wings aloft and went skittering over the snow. Ballard looked more closely. A group of them were huddled under a cedar tree. At his approach they set forth in pairs and threes and went hopping and hobbling over the crust, dragging their wings. Ballard ran after them. They ducked and fluttered. He fell and rose and ran laughing. He caught and held one warm and feathered in his palm with the heart of it beating there just so.

  HE CAME UP A RUTTED drive and past the roof of a car sliced off and propped on the ground with cinderblocks. A light-cord ran across the mud and underneath the car roof a bulb burned and a group of depressed looking chickens huddled and clucked. Ballard rapped on the porch floor. It was a cold gray day. Thick gouts of brownish smoke swirled over the roof and the rags of
snow in the yard lay gray and lacy and flecked with coalsoot. He peeped down at the bird against his breast. The door opened.

  Get in here, said a woman in a thin cotton house-dress.

  He went on up the porchsteps and entered the house. He spoke with the woman but his eye was on the daughter. She moved ill at ease about the house, all tits and plump young haunch and naked legs. Cold enough for ye? said Ballard.

  What about this weather, said the woman.

  I brung him a playpretty, Ballard said, nodding to the thing in the floor.

  The woman turned her shallow dish-shaped face upon him. Done what? she said.

  Brung him a playpretty. Looky here.

  He hauled forth the half froze robin from his shirt and held it out. It turned its head. Its eye flicked.

  Looky here, Billy, said the woman.

  It didn't look. A hugeheaded bald and slobbering primate that inhabited the lower reaches of the house, familiar of the warped floorboards and the holes tacked up with foodtins hammered flat, a consort of roaches and great hairy spiders in their season, perenially benastied and afflicted with a nameless crud.

  Here's ye a playpretty.

  The robin started across the floor, its wings awobble like lateen sails. It spied the ... what? child? child, and veered off toward a corner. The child's dull eyes followed. It stirred into sluggish motion.

  Ballard caught the bird and handed it down. The child took it in fat gray hands.

  He'll kill it, the girl said.

  Ballard grinned at her. It's hisn to kill if he wants to, he said.

  The girl pouted her mouth at him. Shoot, she said.

  I got somethin I'm a goin to bring you, Ballard told her.

  You ain't got nothin I want, she said.

  Ballard grinned.

  I got some coffee hot on the stove, said the woman from the kitchen. Did you want a cup?

  I wouldn't care to drink maybe just a cup, said Ballard, rubbing his hands together to say how cold it was.

  At the kitchen table, a huge white porcelain cup before him, the steam white in the cold of the room by the one window where he sat and the moisture condensing on the flower faded oilcloth. He tilted canned milk in and stirred.

  What time do you reckon Ralph will be in?