“I bet you never thought anybody’d find you,” Orben said.
Joe shrugged.
“You were pretty smart. They was all kinds of stories. The biggest was you going to Myrtle Beach.”
“I don’t reckon.”
“They found your car in Cincinnati and Marlon went and got it. It caught on fire one night, accidental on purpose.”
“Is he okay?”
“Hell, yeah. Nobody bothered him. You can’t hurt that big bastard anyway.”
The sun had moved past its noon spot in the sky and smoke came filtering from the west. Conifers surrounded the men with a wall of green.
“How’s Marlon doing?” Joe said.
“He opened up a muffler shop down on The Road. By God, they say he’s the best in the county.”
“He said he wanted to, but I never believed it.”
“That son of a bitch can weld. Looks like a line of sewing thread when he’s done.”
“Well,” Joe said. “How about Sara and the kids?”
“Same I guess. I never see her out. Them kids are fine, you know. Just growing.”
“And Mom.”
“She died.”
“How?”
“In her sleep.”
Joe stared at the dirt, his mouth clamped tight.
“I’m sorry,” Orben said. “She never done nothing to nobody.”
“Thank,” Joe said. “What about Abigail?”
“Took off. Some said she went with you and some said she was pregnant. I heard she went up to Detroit.”
“She’s got people up there.”
“So do I,” Orben said.
“Me, too.”
They looked at each other, trapped by the intimacy of meeting in a foreign world.
“Didn’t you work at that car plant in Georgetown?” Joe said.
“Damn sure did, building them little rice-burners till I couldn’t take that drive no more. Hundred and fifty miles a day. I got on at Rocksalt Maintenance. Landscaping crew.”
“I’ll be go to hell. I used to work there. You don’t know Rundell Day, do you. Boss of garbage.”
“He retired. Old boy named Taylor’s crew boss now.”
Joe began to laugh, a harsh sound in the still air of the woods. Taylor had gotten Joe’s old job, drew a salary, and wore his name on a shirt.
“Taylor was the biggest drunk on the crew,” he said. “He got so drunk he’d apologize for things he never done. That old boy ran on whisky.”
“Not no more. He got hisself saved now. Carries a Bible in the truck. Nobody wants to work with him the way he carries on. Only man who will is his cousin.”
“Old Dewey. I bet he’s the same.”
“He ain’t likely to change.” Orben chuckled. “Was he engaged when you were there?”
“No.”
“He’s going with some girl from Pick County. It’d take two men and a boy to keep up with them. They’re broke up one day and getting married the next.”
“Pick County.” Joe shook his head. “What’d he think he was doing over in there, I’d like to know.”
“Getting about what he deserves.”
Orben and Joe laughed together until it trickled away, leaving an awkward space of time. Orben adjusted his cap and lit another cigarette.
“Grade school’s closing,” Orben said.
“Ours?”
“Yeah, buddy. They’re already building a new one halfway to town. Remember that bunch of trailers called Divorce Court?”
“Yeah, I used to pick their garbage up.”
“Well, they’re all tore out. And that’s where the new school’s going in,”
“By the drive-in?”
“That’s gone, too.”
“Anything else?”
“Post office shut down. Zeph, he retired, and down it went. I always liked him.”
“Me, too,” Joe said. “Reckon how old he is?”
“I don’t know, but he’s up there. Don’t he look like a turtle to you?”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “I never thought about it, but he did. The way his head set on his neck. How about the bootlegger?”
“You won’t believe it,” Orben said. “They’re trying to get bars in town now, and all the bootleggers are glommed up with the preachers to fight it. Go to church and there’s a bootlegger on the front row, like a hen trying to lay a goose egg,”
“You just know the bootleggers are giving them money.”
“Shoot, yes. Every church in the county’s got a new air conditioner and fresh gravel.”
“Who they calling for to win?”
“It’ll go wet if the college kids vote. The whole fight’s over keeping them out.”
Joe wondered if they’d build new bars, or convert stores to taverns. People who drank in cars might prefer to stay away.
“You’d not know town, Virgil. Eight here lately, there’s talk of building a bypass.”
“A bypass of what?”
“Main Street.”
“Where would it go?”
“They want it to run alongside of Main Street, back toward the creek.”
“Why the hell would they do that?”
“Takes too long to get through town. Funny thing, they want to put traffic lights on the bypass. Pretty soon they’ll need a bypass for the bypass.”
He laughed and Joe grinned, The world had passed Rocksalt by for a hundred years, and now the town was going to make it easier.
“Town,” Joe said. He shook his head. “I’d still yet rather sit in the woods any day. Even if they ain’t my woods.”
“Only thing Rocksalt’s good for is getting out of.”
Again a sense of unease entered the air between them. Wind carried the smell of juniper and spruce from deeper in the woods.
“What happened to my trailer?” Joe said.
“Marlon sold it. That’s how he started his muffler shop. They say the people that bought it draws the biggest government check in Blizzard.”
“They got a bunch of babies, or what?”
“No, nothing like that. There’s just the two of them. It’s the crazy check I reckon.”
“Is there anything else gone on without me?”
“You can get Ale-8 all over the county now.”
“I’d give twenty dollars for a bottle right now. You ain’t got one, do you?”
“Not on me, I sure don’t,”
Joe’s leg hurt and he shifted position to stretch it across the dirt. Orben tensed at the movement, gripping the rifle. The woods were quiet Sunlight spread through the tangle of pine boughs.
“Ever hear anything on old man Morgan?” Joe said.
“Don’t believe I know him.”
“He went deep in them woods past Sparks Branch and set down a long time back. Supposed to have killed a bunch who worked in the old clay mines.”
“I heard that story. My mamaw used to tell me if I didn’t act right, he’d get me. It’s bullshit.”
“He’s real,” Joe said. “He told me you’d come.”
“I don’t reckon.”
“Not you, by name. He said if I shot Billy, there’d be somebody to come. Said they always would be. Said as soon as you Mil one man, you got to kill more. Said it wasn’t no easier either.”
Orben watched him without moving, his hands tight on the rifle.
“You ain’t talking me out of it,” he said.
“I’m ready to die. Half my family’s dead and I can’t go home. Same thing’ll happen to you. If you go back, somebody’ll sneak up on you. Same as you done me.”
“Damn straight, Virgil.”
Orben lifted the rifle to his shoulder. It was a battered Remington, good for squirrel, rabbit, and beer cans. Ty wouldn’t stock it.
Joe’s voice was soft, as if speaking to himself.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I never done it. When I first got here I thought it was the same as Kentucky only the hills were taller. But it ain’t. You’re the first person in a year I talked to who knows how I was raised — start right in talking and tell everybody everything all the time. These people out here don’t say much.