The Sound of the Trees Read online

  The room was walled with oak and the floor was oak as well and the wainscoting beneath the window painted white. He twisted the key on the desktop lamp and turned the desk chair to face the window. He set off his clothes slowly. It was the first time he had fully undressed in months and his skin was dry to the point of cracking. He placed the torn and mud-stained clothes at the foot of the bed, folding his overalls at the pant seam the way his mother had taught him years ago.

  The thin brown muscles of his legs flashed up as he hopped down the hallway and into the bathroom. He pulled on the taps and scrubbed himself with a sliver of soap that was stuck to the tub drain. When he came out he tied a towel around his waist and went back down the hall, where from other rooms he could hear the high-pitched falsettos of whores not altogether different from cries of the injured house martins that as a child he sometimes found on the old barn floor.

  From the closet he took out his saddlebag and redressed himself in his white-button shirt and took out his thick burlap pants with the heavy brown buttons his mother had sewn on and shook them up his legs and rolled back his shortly cropped hair with the fine-bristled brush from her old saddlebag. At last he pulled on his boots and got up and looked at himself briefly in the mirror that was screwed into the door of the hutch. It had been long time since he had seen his own face and there was little in it he recognized.

  He went and laid upon the bed. From the bedpost he took down his hat and placed it over his face. Before long he was thinking of his mother again. How she had gone with him to buy that hat in their old hometown, and how she had straightened it for him with the shopkeeper standing by. He remembered how he had been embarrassed, but also comforted, and he lifted the hat and studied it as it was now, worn and sweat-stained and forked deeply at the center.

  He awoke later in the evening and sat up at the edge of the bed. He pulled his pant cuffs down over his boots. Slid out of the saddlebag and resting beneath the dark varnish of the hutch he saw the corner of the picture frame and he leaned down and took it up. It was a picture of his grandfather taken during the early days of the ranch. He stood before the carriage house, in front of which two painted ponies were trotting by. In the far distance were the tiny skeletons of storefronts. In the picture his grandfather was flanked by the boy’s young mother and father before they’d even been married. They stood with their arms locked about each other’s shoulders and all three were smiling wide.

  He set the picture down and smoked a cigarette in the night’s quiet, the pale light of the plaza lamps fording the room to draw long shadows across the floor. He watched the smoke rise and darken at the ceiling. A bottle shattered on the thoroughfare. Car and truck horns blasted from the streets and people called out into the night, laughing at words he could not make out. He looked at the clock on the false mantle. He drew out his mother’s red scarf from his back pocket. What world has become, he whispered into it. Mama, what world has become.

  SEVEN

  HE WOKE AND went down and fed his horse and mule and the proprietor’s horse. Back in his room he worked open the remaining tin of beans with his knife and ate and slept again. In the early evening he woke to the murmurs of a crowd of people gathered by the willow tree outside. He dressed and took up his hat and went down.

  Among the people in the street he saw the waitress from the cantina and she hailed him over with a waving hand.

  You decided to stay? she called.

  I don’t know. For a little while, at least.

  The waitress slapped her hands together. Well that’s just fine, is what it is. What’s your name anyways?

  Trude.

  I’m Jane.

  She looked off to the willow tree where a man vested in black unleaned himself from the tree trunk and went and put his hands over a wooden podium that stood before the people.

  Here he comes, she said.

  The boy followed her gaze to the man.

  Who’s that?

  That’s the mayor. Ain’t he just handsome as a rose?

  The man held his hands up to quiet the people. The waitress tapped the boy’s arm, then went walking toward the crowd. You make sure you come by tomorrow, she said. Tom’s baking up some rhubarb pies.

  The boy stayed outside the crowd with his thumbs hooked in his belt loops.

  My dear ladies and gentleman, the mayor called.

  His voice was as smooth and even as lake water. His hands went up again, this time in greeting. He looked into the crowd and briefly beyond them at the boy, then began again to speak.

  It is by the glory given unto us by God himself that we stand together tonight and continue our shaping of this great town.

  The townspeople clapped fervently. The boy inspected the crowd. He saw the innkeeper whistling with his fingers to his mouth and he saw children hugging the legs of their parents and the two old men from the bar sitting on fold-out chairs and smoking their cigars, but nowhere did he see the Englishman or the girl.

  If we have grown toward a new future and if there is a design that so let us, it is His, but the hands that have built that design are our own.

  The mayor held his hands forth over the crowd. Another cheer came from the people. They shook one another’s hands. As you all must know, the mayor went on, a final step toward that future is soon to begin.

  I can hear that train whistle blowin, someone shouted.

  The mayor smiled. He nodded in the direction of the voice. That’s right, he said. The railroad construction will begin in just a few days and before long we will no longer need call on the outside world. The outside world will call on us.

  The crowd cheered again and the mayor spoke at great lengths about the coming destiny of the town, where outlaws would be broken and cast out and where goodness and economy would thrive side by side in that very place where the new West would be forged. He spoke about the completion of the electrical wiring and telephone posts being driven at that very moment along the rim of the town. He spoke about the path the railroad would take through the eastern mountain range and endless possibilities of import and export from which they would reap enough benefits so all could live in wealth and harmony.

  The boy listened vaguely and looked around the crowd until something in the distance caught his ear. In the far east corner of the plaza he could hear the hollow music of an old guitar. He looked around once more, then wandered off toward the sound.

  Under a porch at the music hall he came upon a group of young men and women. On the porch rail stood lanterns whose light made their faces look like sculptures. Some danced on the porch front where a number of bottles of port wine were scattered by their feet.

  The guitar player sat crosslegged on the middle step of the porch rise, his white shirt hanging loosely to his body. On his breast the wine stained his shirt like blood. The boy crossed over to them slowly. Another boy stood when the guitar music slowed, taking up a pair of matracas and shaking them and summoning those who still sat to stand up and dance.

  The boy leaned against a cherry tree. He watched them dance, the spinning of the girls and their sundresses flaring up, their patterns of flowers weaving into a sweet and liquid geometry.

  Some of the eyes caught him standing there with his own eyes pinched hard and his fingers linked tight in the loops of his waist belt. Some of the girls looked at him over the shoulders of their partners. The boys who were still sitting watched him furtively, raising their lips to the wine bottles and drinking swiftly. After a while the young man with the guitar stopped playing and handed it to someone else and walked down the porch steps. He stood with the light heavy on his back and faced the boy standing in the darkness. You wantin to say something? he said.

  No.

  The young man nodded, considering him. The others watched them in the silence until the boy he’d handed the guitar to began to play again.

  You lookin to be a dancer then?

  No.

  You want a drink then, is that it?

  No. I reckon I don’t
.

  You just want to stand there.

  The boy kicked the ground absently. I suppose, he said.

  The young man stepped into the darkness and leaned against the tree.

  If you’re lookin for something else, I expect you should remember I’m not alone here. You must think your balls are big enough to clear your way through all of us.

  I ain’t lookin for no fight. Nor do I think anything particular about my balls.

  The young man leaned away from the tree and his face eased. You ain’t from around here, are you?

  No. I come up from the south.

  You speak pretty good English for a Mexican.

  I ain’t Mexican. I come up from Grant County.

  Well, I ain’t from here neither. Not original at least. I was born here but my parents come over from Italy.

  So you’re an Italian.

  The young man spat boozily to his side, some of the spittle enduring in a long strand down from his lip. He wiped it away with his shirtsleeve. Yep, he said.

  You don’t sound Italian.

  I reckon it’s been bred out of me.

  The boy watched him with a little curiosity, the young man’s face slightly bemused, his knees unsure beneath him.

  So you got a name, cowboy?

  Trude Mason.

  Trude? What the hell kind of name is Trude?

  The boy kicked at the ground again. The kind I was given, he said.

  The young man grinned.

  Mine’s John Frank. Changed from Franco if you have to know.

  He leaned toward the boy, a half smile cocked on his face. You know what they say? he whispered in mock conspiracy.

  No. What do they say?

  Never trust a man with two first names.

  I’ll remember that, the boy said.

  John Frank paused and scratched his head, tightening his brow to suggest as much gravity as he could muster. Don’t you worry, he said. I aim to change that story.

  I’m glad to hear it.

  John Frank looked at him for a moment, then snapped his fingers in the direction of the dancers. Someone brought over a bottle of wine and he took it and drew long from its lip. He held it out to the boy.

  I don’t want none, he said. I told you.

  John Frank raised his eyebrows. Easy cowboy, he said. Easy.

  They looked out at the dancers. The light burned into the girls’ faces and lit up their red lips.

  My my, John Frank said. My my. He poked the boy in the side with the bottle. So what you doin here anyway? That’s a long haul from Grant County, ain’t it?

  It is.

  So why you here?

  The boy studied his hands briefly, then looked down at the ground.

  No reason I could say for sure. Just movin away.

  To here?

  No. Well. For a while. I’m on my way to Colorado.

  Colorado, John Frank said. Colorado for the cowboy.

  The sound from the plaza escalated into a clatter of hands. The boy looked over toward the wooden podium from which the vested mayor was now stepping away. What was all that about over there? he asked.

  The Italian peeled his eyes from the dancing girls and looked toward the plaza. That was the mayor’s first-of-the-month speech, he said. I work for him.

  With this last declaration John Frank straightened up.

  Doin what?

  Frank slumped down again. He waved his hands pointlessly before them.

  Doin anything he says. He’s pretty much judge and jury around here. I just follow him around and make sure he’s got everything he needs.

  What were you doin over here then?

  Same as you. I heard enough of them speeches to last my life and my children’s, were I ever to have me some. He glanced back at the girls and shook his head. My my, he said again.

  The boy turned back to the darkening willow tree from which the crowd had gone. You like that kind of work?

  John Frank turned back to the boy and raised his eyebrows. I don’t despise it, he said. It pays. And the mayor comes out a pretty good man.

  Does he?

  Yeah. Good as we got, I figure. Smartest one, that’s for sure. I reckon he’ll be runnin this town until his dyin day. Ain’t nobody crosses him cause they know he’s smarter than they. Myself, I don’t aim to run this town. I just aim to stay on his good side.

  The boy shifted his hat down from his head and looked at it in his hands.

  He’s got a bad side then?

  Frank looked at him queerly, then nodded. It’s been said.

  The boy held out his hand to the Italian and they shook. Then he reached out and took the bottle from Frank’s hand and turned it and studied the damp label, then handed it back to him.

  Don’t we all, he said.

  * * *

  In the morning the boy sat in the same booth at the cantina. The waitress brought him a slice of the rhubarb pie she had spoken of and a cup of coffee.

  You get that horse of yours all fixed up?

  Yes ma’am.

  She leaned over the booth and looked out the window to where Triften stood tied to the porch rail. Looking right fine, she said. And I see you cleaned yourself up too.

  She rubbed the stubble of his sun-streaked hair.

  Thank you Miss Jane, he said, moving away from her hand and patting down his hair. You got an ashtray?

  He sipped his coffee and smoked the last of his loose tobacco. After a while the door swung open and the bell above it rang and John Frank walked in, his suit a fine gray and freshly starched. He saw the boy sitting in the back and grinned and sauntered over and slid into the booth.

  Mornin cowboy. You followin me now, is that it?

  The boy sipped his coffee and looked out the window. Mornin, he said. But I ain’t no cowboy.

  John Frank shook loose his coat from his arms. What are you then?

  Nothin. The boy turned his head away from the window and looked at him. Right now I’m nothin, he said.

  I believe whatever side of the bed you got up on wasn’t the right one, John Frank said. He rubbed his hands together and took a long brisk breath. So you offerin me a cup of coffee?

  Yep, the boy said, long as you’re offerin me this here piece of pie.

  John Frank reached in his stiff shirt pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes. That’s a quick tongue you got, he said.

  The boy thumbed out his own cigarette in the tin ashtray the waitress had set on the table and reached his hand across the table. And I guess you’re offerin me a cigarette too, he said.

  Sumbitch. Frank passed the boy a cigarette, grinning and shaking his head. Just cause I work for the man don’t mean I feast like him too.

  I’m sure you feast well enough.

  How bout you? You seem to look pretty good yourself. Good enough to buy your own cigarettes at least.

  Lots of things in this world are different than they look.

  Is that so?

  Yeah. It is.

  So?

  So you’re lookin at one.

  John Frank flicked his cigarette ash toward the ashtray. You huntin work then? he said.

  Nothin like what you got. I don’t aim to stay too long.

  Frank leaned across the table. Well listen here, he said. It ain’t cattle ropin but I got work enough to keep you paid for a stretch. It ain’t much but I can probably get it. And I reckon you could leave it whenever you so desired.

  I don’t know, the boy said.

  John Frank eased back as the waitress stepped up and leaned over the table to fill their coffees.

  How was that pie? she said.

  John Frank peered down at the boy’s plate where only the crust of the pie remained. He pinched his nose and stuck out his tongue. It was rhubarb alright, he said.

  Nothin was directed at you as I recall, Miss Jane said. And if you don’t like it, you won’t get none. Don’t think I don’t see you pickin at it from the case.

  I guess I’m just what you’d call a glu
tton for punishment.

  The waitress waved her hand in front of John Frank. You got the glutton part right, she said.

  The boy looked up at her. It was good, he said.

  Just hear me out, John Frank went on when the waitress had left. I’m always havin to run these papers to this house in the middle of nowhere for the mayor, and half the time I don’t got the time. You hear me?

  I reckon. So?

  So I can put you on the old man’s payroll. Tell him I need help. Shit, he’s got enough money to buy Santa Fe if the idea struck him.

  What kind of papers are they?

  John Frank put his hand up in the air. I don’t know, he said. Official-type papers. Nothin interesting. You’d just take the package of papers over in the morning and slip em under the door and that’s it.

  And that’s it?

  Yeah. That’s it.

  Who’s door is it?

  I think the old man’s lawyer. But you never see him around. Some say he’s the only one who knows the town’s true business, and I myself believe it. I know a good piece and the mayor more than me, but I reckon that lawyer knows it all. John Frank passed his hand about the air again and hunched over his coffee. Anyway, it’s an easy little dance. About a three-hours walk is all the trouble to it, lest you got a truck.

  The boy turned the mug in his hands and looked out the window. I got my horse, he said.

  John Frank slapped the palms of his hands on the table. Well well, he said. A cowboy after all. Ride on then, hombre. You can cut that time in half and the rest of the day and night you can spend in whatever way you fashion. Colorado ain’t goin nowhere. Save yourself some greenbacks. Besides, I could stand havin someone around who in all likelihood dances worse than me.

  The boy looked at Frank and blew smoke into the ceiling light then looked out the window. He ran his fingers along the table edge. I guess I’ll give it a shot, he said. But just for a while.

  John Frank slapped his hands on the table again. Some of the coffee from his mug toppled over and he grinned at it running down the table. Hot damn, he said. He fished in his pockets and brought forth a handful of coins and stacked them on the table. It’s on me today, he said. You sorry-lookin cowboy.