A Country Rag Country Reckoning

After supper, they sat on the porch together. Grady lit another Lucky, took a deep drag and tilted back in his chair.

"Well, I reckon I got rid of that pain-in-the-ass-son-of-a-bitch-goddamned-mooching-Loy-Harmon. I showed him a thing or two."

The next evening, an hour after Loy walked by without speaking, Grady decided he was listening in on the party line. He called the phone co-op to complain.

"Why, Mr. Clarke?" the voice on the other end said. "Are you planning on shooting another telephone?"

He growled into the phone and slammed the receiver down, cracking one of the upright posts of the cradle.

After dinner, he and Essie sat quietly on the porch. Across the road, by the trout pond, a muskrat crawled from its hole and stood, sniffing the air and looking quickly around. Slowly, Grady reached for the thirty-thirty, swung the sights up to his eyes and shot. The muskrat tumbled forward, into the water.

"Damn, just what I need, a muskrat rotting in my pond."

Grady got up and rushed over, grabbing the net he kept leaning against the fireplace. He fished the muskrat from the pond, took it by the tail and carrying it down to Clemmie's field, twirled it around his head and threw it into the center of the corn.

"Rot there, you son-of-a-bitch," he yelled.

Coming back to the porch, he lit another Lucky, tilted back and looked at Essie.

"You think I might could have hurt Loy's feelings yesterday?"

She nodded. "You might could have."

He nodded back, a look of small satisfaction on his face. It rained all the next morning. By late afternoon it had stopped and a heavy mist clung to the ground, trees and buildings looking as though they were rising from a soft and shifting sea, mysterious and quiet. After dinner Grady and Essie sat on the porch.

"So, you think I might could have hurt Loy's feelings?"

She nodded.

"At least we had dinner by ourselves for a change these last few nights."

She didn't answer.

He smiled to himself and watched Clemmie's field, the lower halves of the cornstalks invisible.

"That little son-of-a-bitch could be down there on his hands and knees, digging holes or trying to push the damn stream up this way, and I'd never know it with this goddamn mist covering it all up."

Crushing a butt on the porch floor, he looked quickly at Essie and picked it up, dropping it into a coffee can sitting on the table beside him. He scattered the ashes with his shoe. "He could be doing it, you know," he said. "Stealing all kinds of land under that mist."

"He could be home watching the television or taking a bath, or doing whatever it is that Wards do when Clarkes aren't watching them." Essie shook her head, watching Grady's face.

"Not Clemmie Ward. He doesn't live for anything except for stealing land. He's down there." He reached for the rifle, making sure a cartridge was in the firing chamber. "Let him stick his ugly little shifty eyed head one inch up out of that mist and I'm going to blow it off."

Long after darkness came, Grady sat on the porch, staring at the white mist covering the fields.

He slept poorly that night, caught by dreams in which a small army of Winston-Salem doctors stood over his bed, looking down at him, faces distorted, long jowled and puffy, mouths turned down, eyes wide, shaking their heads in unison.

You can't be alive, they told him.

You'll die, you're dying, you're dead, their voices said, rising together like reedy sour notes played on an ancient organ.

He sat up awake and looked over at Essie, breathing regularly beside him. He felt his pulse. Still there. His arms were firm, his rough face familiar under his fingertips. Getting out of bed, he crossed to the window. The valley was white with moonlight reflecting from the mist.

Downstairs, he walked out on the porch and looked down the road, sure he could see the upper half of Clemmie's body floating on the mist above the cornfield, his head moving toward the creek, his arms stretched out before him, pointing at the water.

Grady ran back inside, took the rifle from above the mantle where he hung it every night and went back to the porch. Resting against a pole, the rifle braced against it and his shoulder, he cupped his left hand around his mouth, aiming carefully at Clemmie's form.

"You take one more step toward that stream, you little son-of-a-bitch, and I'll blow your goddamn head off."

Clemmie acted as though he didn't hear him. Bastard probably had cotton in his ears. Grady could imagine him getting ready to go out, stuffing it in, smiling at his wife.

"If that fool Grady Clarke sees me out there tonight, he'll start yelling and carrying on, and I won't have to listen to a word he says."

And Lucy would have nodded her head, smiling the same smug land-stealing smile Clemmie always wore. It was the Ward smile. They were all born with it and those who married into the family learned it during the honeymoon. If you could call camping in a cave on Grandfather Mountain with bears and rattlesnakes a honeymoon.

"Go get us another couple inches of land, honey" she would have said to him. Then she would have stood on their porch, watching Clemmie drift through the mist, ready to push the creek toward Grady's house and barn, turning Clarke meadow into Ward cornfield.

Wards probably talked about stealing Clarke land at dinner every night.

"I pushed the creek another tenth of an inch over Grady Clarke's line last Thursday."

"Think you can get some more tonight, daddy?"

Laughter. "Hell yes. One day, before I was born, my grandaddy stole a whole three inches of Clarke land in one month. Nobody ever knowed a thing about it."

Imagining the Wards laughing, their beady eyes shifting around the dinner table, their noses twitching, their huge buck teeth pulling kernels from their corncobs, Grady felt the rage surge through his body.

"I ain't giving you another warning, Clemmie Ward. One more inch and I'm going to shoot you sure as I been shooting the muskrats in my damn trout pond."

The Clemmie in the mist stopped moving toward the creek, then dropped out of sight.

Grady lowered the gun. "And stay the hell away," he yelled.

Clemmie didn't reappear. Grady watched for him, waiting for him to rise through the mist, speeding back toward his house.

Nothing. No movement. No sign of Clemmie.

Grady sat on the porch, watching until the moon disappeared behind the mountain. If he went down there he'd probably find Clemmie be waiting for him, hunkered down between the rows of corn, laughing at him. Grady didn't want to see that.

Finally, he shrugged and went back to bed. Essie hadn't moved. It was as though the sounds of his moving around hadn't carried beyond his own ears.

When he got up in the morning, the mist was still there, hugging the ground. Pouring himself a cup of coffee, he went out to the porch and looked down at the fields. There was no movement. No sound. He watched until noon, but saw no signs of Clemmie.

By midafternoon the mist had burned off. He walked down the road, as though out for a stroll, looking at Clemmie's field as he passed. There was no sign of him anywhere around the place.

"You hear anything last night?" He finally said to Essie as they were eating dinner.

"Should I have?"

He shrugged. "I just wondered."

"I heard you snoring, but I poked you on the back and you rolled over and stopped."

"Nothing else?"

"Like what?"

"Oh, noises."

"I guess not."

He nodded, eating a large forkful of greasy beans. When he finished them, he took a sip of water. At least he hadn't wakened Essie with his yelling.

"I sure hope I didn't hurt Loy's feelings."

"Like I said yesterday, you might could have."

He nodded, his attention on the road, still looking for Clemmie to come out in the field, surveying his land, looking for fence posts to move, Clarke land to steal in the coming night.

Everything was still quiet at bedtime. He lay awake for several hours, finally drifting off to sleep, only to dream of shooting Clemmie and Roby Winkler coming to drag him down the long hallway at Raleigh State Penitentiary, the electric chair waiting for him, its long shadow reaching halfway up the hall, Clemmie Ward standing behind it, holding the black hood which would be slipped over Grady's face.

"I'm going to get all your land now, Grady Clarke," Clemmie said. "Letting you kill me was the biggest Ward land grab yet. There ain't going to be an acre of land left in Clarke hands on Clarke's Creek. It's just going to be Ward land. Everything except that little trout pond of yours. I'm giving it to the muskrats, for a breeding ground."

They strapped him in the chair and Clemmie put the hood over his face.

"This won't be so bad, Grady. You been dying for the last ten years anyway. Might as well get it over with."

He backed out of the execution chamber, shutting the door behind him. Grady sat there in the dark, imagining his land becoming Ward land. His house lived in by Wards. His barn filled with Ward horses and Ward cows, Ward hay piled in the loft, Ward corn growing in his meadow. Then the lights outside dimmed and he woke up, sweat pouring from his body.

"Hell no, I ain't dying yet," he yelled as Essie sat up startled and patted his back.

After breakfast, he went to the tobacco plot, from time to time looking down the road toward Clemmie's. Still there were no signs of activity from the Ward place, and no sounds from there echoing up the holler. During the noon meal, he asked Essie if she'd seen anything interesting from the house. "Nothing, just like always. Why?"

"Just wondering. I haven't seen Clemmie out in his field the last couple of days."

She thought for a minute, then grunted. "That's not like him, neglecting the corn and all?"

"Maybe he's sick, or something like that," Grady said, trying to make it sound like it didn't matter.

"He could be," Essie said.

Scratching his chin, he looked at her. Then, to change the subject, he mentioned Loy, asking her if she'd talked to him the last day or so.

"No more than you have. He just goes on up the road past this place like it was haunted."

"I sure hope I didn't hurt his feelings," he said.

"Then tell him that tonight when he goes by."

When his work was done, Grady sat on the porch, watching for Clemmie, who never appeared, and Loy, who turned the corner on schedule, raising red dust as he moved up the road, his face straight ahead.

"Hidy, Loy," Grady said when he was even with the walk leading from the road to the Clarke's porch.

Looking thinner, Loy paused and half turned toward the walk. Then he stopped, turning back toward the road, where he stood without moving.

"You been all right, Loy?"

"I been fine, Grady. And you?"

"I'm doing good. Heard any interesting news?"

Loy shook his head. "Not around here. Not much ever happens on Clarke's Creek."

"Would you like a beer, Loy?"

"I wouldn't mind having one at all."

"Well come on up and I'll get you one."

While Loy climbed to the porch and took a seat, Grady got two beers from the refrigerator and brought them back, handing one to Loy.

They talked about the weather, about last year's tobacco prices and the outlook for this year. Things they had discussed time and again. After a second beer, Grady tilted back in his chair and looked down the road toward the Ward place, seeing only wood smoke curling from the kitchen chimney. The field was empty, a light breeze rippling the tassles on the corn. Over the mountain, dark clouds were coming toward them, the smell of rain heavy on the air.

Essie came out, wiping her hands on her apron. "Dinner's about ready."

Loy stood. "Well, I guess I'd better get on up the road."

"You stay and have dinner with us," Grady said.

"I think I should get home, Grady, thank you."

"I won't hear of it, Loy. We've got lots of food. Now, you just stay."

"I guess I'll go home."

"You just stay."

Loy nodded, smiling. "If you got enough for me, I'd surely like to stay."

In the kitchen they sat down to a fine dinner with venison, corn, biscuits and gravy, fresh red tomatoes, lettuce, and greasy beans. After dinner the three of them sat on the porch, tilted back in their chairs, relaxing in the Appalachian evening.

As they sat, Grady saw Clemmie's figure moving through the corn, baseball hat bobbing, as he stopped from time to time to check the ears, finger the soil and smell the sweet, wet breeze. He watched him quietly for a few minutes, making sure he wasn't coming too close to the creek. Then he turned away, staring up into the sky, clouds brightly streaked by the setting sun.

"A night like this requires a celebration," Grady said, standing to go inside for a fruit jar of his best corn whiskey. He looked once more in the direction of the Free Will Baptist Church and saw Clemmie Ward, a huge smile on his face, walking toward the creek.

Yelling in rage, Grady grabbed the rifle and leaning from the porch post, shook his fist at the figure in the mist. Clemmie stopped and stood a few feet from the water.

"You take one more step toward that stream, you little son-of-a-bitch, and I'll blow your goddamn head off."

Clemmie stepped back, still smiling, and waved soundlessly at Grady, who stood shaking his fist, the rifle aimed at Clemmie's heart.

He stayed there, unmoving, until Clemmie turned and walked back across his field.

"I guess I stopped that pain-in-the-ass-land-stealing-son-of-a-bitch from stepping over onto Clarke land." He leaned the rifle back against the house and went inside, returning with the fruit jar and three small tumblers.

Pouring clear liquid into each, he handed one to Essie, one to Loy and sat down with his, raising the tumbler in the air.

"To life," he said, sipping from it. The whiskey burned his throat, as it always did. He coughed, pounded his chest and wiped his eyes. Clapping Loy on the shoulder, he looked over at Essie, a pleased smile on his face.

"Hey Ess, what else could we ask for? Good whiskey, a fine dinner with greasy beans, and old friends. We've got everything we need, wouldn't you say?"

She looked past him at Clemmie's figure disappearing in the corn, blue baseball cap bobbing even with the yellow tassles.

She smiled. "There's enough to keep us going, no doubt."

Grady nodded. "Tomorrow I'm getting rid of those pain-in-the-ass-muskrats, if I have to blow up the whole goddamn pond and start over again. I'll show them."

Essie was still smiling. "You show them, Grady. You show them good. You show them all good."

Rocked back in their chairs they sat quietly until long after the last streaks of sunset had faded, sipping corn whiskey and listening to the crickets and the toads sing in the soft mountain night.