Cormac McCarthy - Child of God

T HEY CAME LIKE A CARAVAN of carnival folk up through the swales of broomstraw and across the hill in the morning sun, the truck rocking and pitching in the ruts and the musicians on chairs in the truckbed teetering and tuning their instruments, the fat man with guitar grinning and gesturing to others in a car behind and bending to give a note to the fiddler who turned a fiddlepeg and listened with a wrinkled face. They passed under flowering appletrees and passed a log crib chinked with orange mud and forded a branch and came in sight of an aged clapboard house that stood in blue shade under the wall of the mountain. Beyond it stood a barn. One of the men in the truck bonged on the cab roof with his fist and the truck came to a halt. Cars and trucks came on through the weeds in the yard, people afoot.

To watch these things issuing from the otherwise mute pastoral morning is a man at the barn door. He is small, unclean, unshaven. He moves in the dry chaff among the dust and slats of sunlight with a constrained truculence. Saxon and Celtic bloods. A child of God much like yourself perhaps. Wasps pass through the laddered light from the barnslats in a succession of strobic moments, gold and trembling between black and black, like fireflies in the serried upper gloom. The man stands straddlelegged, has made in the dark humus a darker pool wherein swirls a pale foam with bits of straw. Buttoning his jeans he moves along the barn wall, himself flddlebacked with light, a petty annoyance flickering across the wall-ward eye.

Standing in the forebay door he blinks. Behind him there is a rope hanging from the loft. His thinly bristled jaw knots and slacks as if he were chewing but he is not chewing. His eyes are almost shut against the sun and through the thin and blueveined lids you can see the eyeballs moving, watching. A man in a blue suit gesturing from the truckbed. A lemonade stand going up. The musicians striking up a country reel and the yard filling up with people and the loudspeaker making a few first squawks.

All right now lets get everbody up here and get registered for ye free silver dollars. Right up here. Thats the way. How you little lady? Well all right. Yessir. All right now. Jessie? Have you got it ? All right now. Jess and them is got the house open for them that wants to see inside. Thats all right. Were fixin to have some music here in just a minute and we want to get everbody registered fore we have the drawins. Yessir? Whats that? Yessir, thats right. Thats right everbody, we will bid on the tracts and then well have a chance to bid on the whole. Theys both sides of the road now, it goes plumb across the creek to them big timbers on the other side yonder. Yessir. Well get into that directly.

Bowing, pointing, smiling. The microphone in one hand. Among the pines on the ridge the sound of the autioneers voice echoed muted, redundant. An illusion of multiple voices, a ghost chorus among old ruins.

Now theys good timber up here too. Real good timber. Its been cut over fifteen twenty year ago and so maybe it aint big timber yet, but looky here. While youre a laying down there in your bed at night this timber is up here growin. Yessir. And I mean that sincerely. They is real future in this property. As much future as youll find anywheres in this valley. Maybe more. Friends, they is no limit to the possibilities on a piece of property like this. Id buy it myself if I had any more money. And I believe you all know that ever penny I own is in real estate. And ever one Ive made has been from real estate. If I had a million dollars I would have it ever cent invested in real estate within ninety days. And you all know that. They aint no way for it to go but up. A piece of land like this here I sincere believe will give ye ten percent on your investment. And maybe more. Maybe as high as twenty percent. Your money down here in this bank wont do that for ye and you all know that. There is no sounder investment than property. Land. You all know that a dollar wont buy what it used to buy. A dollar might not be worth but fifty cents a year from now. And you all know that. But real estate is goin up, up, up.

Friends, six year ago when my uncle bought the Prater place down here everbody tried to talk him out of it. He give nineteen-five for that farm. Said I know what Im a doin. And you all know what happent down there. Yessir. Sold for thirty-eight thousand. A piece of land like this Now it needs some improvin. Its rough. Yes it is. But friends you can double your money on it. A piece of real estate, and particular in this valley, is the soundest investment you can make. Sound as a dollar. And Im very sincere when I say that.

In the pines the voices chanted a lost litany. Then they stopped. A murmur went through the crowd. The auctioneer had handed over the microphone to another man. The other man said: Holler at the sheriff yonder, C B.

The auctioneer waved his hand at him and bent to the man standing in front of him. Small man, ill-shaven, now holding a rifle.

What do you want, Lester?

I done told ye. I want you to get your goddamn ass off my property. And take these fools with ye.

Watch your mouth, Lester. Theys ladies present.

I dont give a fuck whos present.

It aint your property.

The hell it aint.

You done been locked up once over this. I guess you want to go again. The high sheriff is standin right over yonder.

I dont give a good goddamn where the high sheriff is at. I want you sons of bitches off of my goddamned property. You hear?

The auctioneer was squatting on the tailboard of the truck. He looked down at his shoes, plucked idly at a piece of dried mud in the welt. When he looked back up at the man with the rifle he was smiling. He said: Lester, you dont get a grip on yourself they goin to put you in a rubber room.

The man took a step backward, the rifle in one hand. He was almost crouching and he held his free hand out with the fingers spread toward the crowd as if to hold them back. Get down off that truck, he hissed.

The man on the truck spat and squinted at him. What you aim to do, Lester, shoot me? I didnt take your place off of ye. County done that. I was just hired as auctioneer.

Get off that truck.

Behind him the musicians looked like compositions in porcelain from an old county fair shooting gallery. Hes crazy, C B.

C B said: You want to shoot me, Lester, you can shoot me where Im at. I aint going nowheres for you.

L ESTER B ALLARD NEVER could hold his head right after that. It must of thowed his neck out someway or another. I didnt see Buster hit him but I seen him layin on the ground. I was with the sheriff. He was layin flat on the ground lookin up at everbody with his eyes crossed and this awful pumpknot on his head. He just laid there and he was bleedin at the ears. Buster was still standin there holdin the axe. They took him on in the county car and C B went on with the auction like nothin never had happent but he did say that it caused some folks not to bid that otherwise would of, which may of been what Lester set out at, I dont know. John Greer was from up in Grainger County. Not sayin nothin against him but he was.

F RED K IRBY WAS SQUATTING in his front yard next to the watertap where he used to sit all the time when Ballard came by. Ballard stood in the road and looked up at him. He said: Hey Fred. Kirby lifted his hand and nodded. Come up, Lester, he said.