said
ants would get at them, and hauled himself into the-tree. His blue shirt was
spotted with  squirrel  blood, and  flecks of blood glittered in  his  rough
leather-colored hair; he smelted of gunpowder, and his homely well-made face
was  brown as  cinnamon. "I'll  be  damned,  it's  a  tree-house," he  said,
pounding  his foot  as though to  test the strength of the boards. Catherine
warned him that maybe it was a tree-house now, but it  wouldn't  be for long
if he didn't stop that stamping. He said, "You build it, Collin?" and it was
with a happy  shock that  I  realized he'd called my  name: I hadn't thought
Riley Henderson knew me from dust. But I knew him, all right."
     No one  in our  town ever  had themselves so much talked about as Riley
Henderson. Older people  spoke of him with sighing  voices, and those nearer
his own  age, like myself,  were  glad to call him mean and  hard: that  was
because he would  only  let us envy him, would not let us  love him,  be his
friend.
     Anyone could have told you the facts.
     He was bom in China, where his father, a missionary, had been killed in
an  uprising. His mother was from this town, and her name was Rose; though I
never saw her myself, people say she was a beautiful woman until she started
wearing glasses;  she was rich too, having received a large inheritance from
her grandfather. When she came back from China she brought Riley, then five,
and two younger children, both girls; they lived with her unmarried brother.
Justice of the Peace Horace Holton, a meaty spinsterish man with skin yellow
as quince. In the following years Rose Henderson grew strange in  her  ways:
she  threatened  to sue Verena  for selling her  a dress that  shrank in the
wash; to punish Riley, she  made him hop on one leg around the yard reciting
the multiplication  table; otherwise, she  let  him run wild,  and  when the
Presbyterian  minister spoke to  her about  it she told  him  she hated  her
children and  wished they  were dead.  And she  must have meant it,  for one
Christmas morning she locked the  bathroom door and tried  to  drown her two
little girls  in the tub: it was said that Riley broke the door down with  a
hatchet, which seems a tall order for a boy of nine or ten, whatever he was.
Afterwards, Rose  was sent off to a place on the Gulf Coast, an institution,
and she  may still be living there, at least I've never heard that she died.
Now Riley and  his  uncle  Horace Holton couldn't get on. One night he stole
Horace's Oldsmobile  and  drove out  to the Dance-N-Dine with Mamie Curtiss:
she was fast as  lightning, and maybe five years older  than Riley, who  was
not  more than fifteen at the  time. Well,  Horace heard  they  were  at the
Dance-N-Dine and  got the  Sheriff  to drive  him  out there: he said he was
going to teach Riley a lesson and have him arrested. But Riley said Sheriff,
you're after the wrong party. Right there in front of a crowd he accused his
uncle of stealing money that belonged to Rose and that was meant for him and
his  sisters.  He offered to fight it out on the spot; and when  Horace held
back, he just  walked over and socked him in the eye. The Sheriff put  Riley
in jail. But Judge Cool,  an old friend of Rose's, began to investigate, and
sure enough it turned out Horace had been draining Rose's money into his own
account.  So  Horace  simply packed his things and  took  the  train  to New
Orleans where, a few months, later, we heard that, billed as the Minister of
Romance,  he had  a job marrying couples on  an excursion  steamer that made
moonlight cruises up the Mississippi. From then  on, Riley was his own boss.
With money borrowed against the inheritance he was coming into, he bought  a
red racy car and went  skidding  round the  countryside with every floozy in
town; the only nice  girls you ever saw in that car were his sisters-he took
them  for a  drive  Sunday afternoons, a  slow  respectable circling  of the
square. They were pretty girls, his sisters, but they  didn't have much fun,
for  he  kept  a  strict watch, and boys were  afraid  to come near them.  A
reliable colored woman  did their housework, otherwise they lived alone. One
of his sisters, Elizabeth, was  in my  class at school, and she got the best
grades, straight A's.  Riley himself had quit school;  but he was not one of
the pool-hall loafs, nor did he mix with them; he fished in the daytime,  or
went hunting; around the old Holton house  he made many improvements,  as he
was a good carpenter; and a  good mechanic,  too: for  instance,  he built a
special car hom, it  wailed like  a train-whistle,  and  in  the evening you
could hear it howling as he  roared down  the  road on his way to a dance in
another town. How  I longed for him to be my friendl and it seemed possible,
he  was  just two  years older. But I could remember  the only time he  ever
spoke to  me. Spruce in a pair of white flannels, he  was off  to a dance at
the clubhouse, and he came into Verena's drugstore, where I sometimes helped
out  on Saturday nights.  What  he  wanted  was a  package of Shadows, but I
wasn't sure  what Shadows were, so he had to come behind the counter and get
them out of the  drawer himself; and he laughed, not unkindly, though it was
worse  than  if it had been: now  he knew  I was a  fool, we would never  be
friends.
     Dolly said, "Have  a piece of cake, Riley," and he asked did we  always
have picnics this early in the day? then went  on to say he considered it  a
fine idea: "Like swimming  at night," he said. "I come  down here while it's
still dark,  and go swimming in the river. Next time you have a picnic, call
out so I'll know you're here."
     "You are welcome any morning," said Dolly, raising her veil. "I daresay
we will be here for some while."
     Riley must have thought it a curious invitation, but he did not say so.
He produced  a package of cigarettes and passed  it around;  when  Catherine
took one. Dolly said: "Catherine Creek, you've never touched tobacco in your
life." Catherine allowed as to  how she may have been missing something: "It
must  be a comfort, so many folks  speak in its favor; and Dolly-heart, when
you get to be our age you've got to  look for comforts." Dolly  bit her lip;
"Well, I don't suppose there's any harm," she said, and accepted a cigarette
herself.
     There  are  two things that  will drive  a boy crazy  (according to Mr.
Hand, who caught me smoking in  the lavatory at school) and I'd given up one
of them, cigarettes,  two  years before: not because I thought it would make
me crazy, but because I thought it was imperiling my  growth.  Actually, now
that I was a normal size, Riley was  no taller than  me, though he seemed to
be, for he moved with  the drawn-out cowboy awkwardness of a lanky man. So I
took a cigarette, and Dolly, gushing  un-inhaled smoke, said  she thought we
might as  well all be sick together; but no one was sick, and Catherine said
next time she would like to try a pipe, as they smelled  so good.  Whereupon
Dolly  volunteered the surprising fact that Verena smoked a pipe,  something
I'd never known: "I don't know whether  she does  any more, but  she used to
have a pipe and a can of Prince  Albert with half an apple cut up in it. But
you musnt tell that," she added, suddenly aware of Riley, who laughed aloud.
     Usually, glimpsed on the street or seen  passing in his car, Riley wore
a tense,  trigger-tempered expression; but there in the China tree he seemed
relaxed:  frequent smiles enriched his whole  face, as though he  wanted  at
least to be friendly, if not friends. Dolly, for her part, appeared to be at
ease and enjoying his company. Certainly she was not afraid of him:  perhaps
it was because we were in the tree-house, and the tree-house was her own.
     "Thank you  for the squirrels, sir," she said, as he prepared to leave.
"And don't forget to come again."
     He  swung  himself to the ground.  "Want  a ride?  My car's up  by  the
cemetery."
     Dolly told him: "That's kind of you; but really we haven't any place to
go."
     Grinning, he lifted his gun  and aimed it at us; and Catherine  yelled:
You ought to be whipped, boy; but he laughed and waved and ran, his bird dog
barking, booming ahead. Dolly said gaily, "Let's  have a cigarette," for the
package had been left behind.
     By the time  Riley reached town the news was roaring in the air  like a
flight of bees: how we'd run off in the middle of the  night. Though neither
Catherine nor I knew it, Dolly had left a note, which  Verena found when she
went for her morning coffee. As I understand it,  this note simply said that
we were going away and that Verena would not be bothered by us any more. She
at once  rang up her friend Morris Ritz at the Lola Hotel, and together they
traipsed off to rouse the sheriff. It was  Verena's backing that had put the
sheriff into  office; he was a fast-stepping,  brassy  young  fellow with  a
brutal jaw and the bashful eyes of  a cardsharp; his  name was Junius Candle
(can  you believe it? the same Junius Candle  who  is  a  Senator today!). A
searching party of deputies was  gathered;  telegrams  were hurried  off  to
sheriffs in other towns. Many  years later, when the  Talbo estate was being
settled, I came across the handwritten original of this telegram-composed, I
believe,  by  Dr.  Ritz.  Be  on  lookout  for following  persons  traveling
together.  Dolly  Augusta Talbo, white, aged 60, yellow grayish  hair, thin,
height 5 feet 3, green  eyes, probably insane but not Ukely to be dangerous,
post  description  bakeries as  she  is cake eater. Catherine  Creek, Negro,
pretends to be Indian,  age about  60, toothless, confused speech, short and
heavy,  strong, likely to be dangerous. Collin Talbo Fenwick, white, age 16,
looks younger, height 5 feet 7, blond, gray eyes. thin, bad posture, scar at
comer of  mouth,  surly  natured.  All  three wanted  as runaways. They sure
haven't run far, Riley said in the post office; and postmistress Mrs. Peters
rushed  to the  telephone to  say  Riley Henderson had seen us in the  woods
below the cemetery.
     While this  was happening  we were peaceably setting about to  make the
tree-house  cozy.   From  Catherine's  satchel  we  took  a  rose  and  gold
scrapquilt, and there was a deck of Rook cards, soap, rolls of toilet paper,
oranges and lemons, candles, a frying pan,  a bottle of blackberry wine, and
two shoeboxes filled  with  food:  Catherine bragged that  she'd robbed  the
pantry of everything, leaving not even a biscuit for That One's breakfast.
     Later, we all  went to the creek and  bathed our feet and  faces in the
cold water. There are as many creeks in  River Woods as there are veins in a
leaf: clear, crackling, they crook their way down into the little river that
crawls  through  the  woods like  a green alligator.  Dolly looked  a sight,
standing  in the water  with  her  winter suit-skirt  hiked up and her  veil
pestering her like a cloud of gnats. I asked her. Dolly, why are you wearing
that veil? and she said,  "But isn't it proper for ladies to wear veils when
they go traveling?"
     Returning to the tree, we  made a delicious jar of orangeade and talked
of  the future. Our assets were: forty-seven dollars  in  cash, and  several
pieces of jewelry, notably a gold fraternity ring Catherine had found in the
intestines  of  a  hog  while  stuffing  sausages. According  to  Catherine,
forty-seven dollars would buy us bus tickets anywhere: she knew somebody who
had gone all the way to  Mexico for fifteen dollars.  Both Dolly  and I were
opposed to Mexico: for one thing, we didnt know the language. Besides, Dolly
said, we shouldn't venture outside the state, and wherever we went  it ought
to be near a forest, otherwise how would we be able to make the dropsy cure?
"To tell you the truth, I think we should set up right here in River Woods,"
she said, gazing about speculatively.
     "In this old  tree?" said Catherine.  "Just put that notion out of your
head, Dollyheart." And then: "You recall how we saw in the paper where a man
bought a castle across the ocean and brought it every bit home with him? You
recall that? Well, we maybe could put my little house on a wagon and haul it
down here." But, as Dolly pointed out, the house belonged to Verena, and was
therefore not ours to haul away.  Catherine answered:  "You wrong, sugar. If
you feed  a man,  and wash his clothes, and born his children,  you and that
man are married, that man is yours. If you sweep a house, and tend its fires
and  fill its stove, and there is love  in you all  the years you are  doing
this, then  you and that house are  married, that house is yours. The way  I
see it,  both those houses up there  belong to  us: in  the eyes  of God, we
could put That One right out"
     I  had  an  idea: down  on the  river  below  us there  was  a forsaken
houseboat, green with the rust of water, half-sunk; it had been the property
of an old man who made his living catching catfish, and who had been run out
of town after applying for a certificate to marry a fifteen-year-old colored
girl. My idea was, why shouldn't we fix up the old houseboat and live there?
     Catherine said that if possible she hoped to spend the rest of her life
on  land:  "Where  the  Lord  intended us,"  and  she  listed  more  of  His
intentions, one of these being that trees were meant for monkeys and  birds.
Presently  she went  silent  and, nudging us, pointed in amazement  down  to
where the woods opened upon the field of grass.
     There,  stalking  toward us, solemnly, stiffly,  came  a  distinguished
party:  Judge Cool,  the Reverend and  Mrs. Buster,  Mrs. Macy  Wheeler; and
leading them,  Sheriff Junius Candle, who  wore  high-laced boots and  had a
pistol  flapping  on  his  hip.  Sunmotes  lilted  around  them like  yellow
butterflies,  brambles brushed their starched  town clothes,  and Mrs.  Macy
Wheeler, frightened  by a vine that  switched against  her leg, jumped back,
screeching: I laughed.
     And, hearing  me,  they looked  up at  us,  an expression  of perplexed
horror collecting on some  of  their faces:  it  was  as  though  they  were
visitors  at  a zoo who  had  wandered  accidentally into  one of the cages.
Sheriff Candle slouched forward, his hand cocked on his pistol. He stared at
us with puckered eyes, as if he were gazing straight into the sun. "Now look
here..." he began, and was cut short by Mrs.  Buster, who said: "Sheriff, we
agreed  to leave this to the  Reverend."  It  was a rule  of hers  that  her
husband, as God's  representative, should  have first say in everything. The
Reverend  Buster cleared  his  throat, and  his  hands,  as he  rubbed  them
together, were like the dry scraping feelers of an insect. "Dolly Talbo," he
said, his voice very  fine-sounding for so stringy, stunted a man,  "I speak
to you on behalf of your sister, that good grar cious woman..."
     "That she is," sang his wife, and Mrs. Macy Wheeler parroted her.
     "...who has this day received a grievous shock."
     That she has," echoed the ladies in their choir-trained voices.
     Dolly looked  at Catherine,  touched my hand, as  though  asking  us to
explain  what was meant  by  the  group  glowering  below like dogs gathered
around a tree of trapped  possums. Inadvertently, and just,  I think to have
something in her hands, she picked up one of the cigarettes Riley had left.
     "Shame on you," squalled  Mrs. Buster, tossing her tiny bald-ish  head:
those  who  called  her an  old  buzzard, and  there were several,  were not
speaking of her  character alone:  in addition  to a small vicious head, she
had high hunched shoulders and a vast body. "I say shame on you. How can you
have  come  so  far  from  God  as to  sit  up in  a  tree  like  a  drunken
Indian-sucking cigarettes like a common..."
     "Floozy," supplied Mrs. Macy Wheeler.
     "...floozy, while your sister lies in misery flat on her back."
     Maybe  they  were  right in describing Catherine as  dangerous, for she
reared  up  and said: "Preacher  lady,  don't  you  go calling  Dolly and us
floozies; 111  come down there and slap you bowlegged." Fortunately, none of
them  could understand her; if  they  had, the  sheriff might  have shot her
through  the  head: no exaggeration; and many of  the  white people in  town
would have said he did right
     Dolly  seemed stunned,  at  the same time self-possessed. You  see, she
simply  dusted her skirt and said: "Consider a moment,  Mrs. Buster, and you
will realize that we are nearer God than you-by several yards."
     "Good for you. Miss Dolly. I call that a good  answer." The man who had
spoken  was   Judge  Cool;  he  clapped  his  hands  together  and  chuckled
appreciatively. "Of course  they  are nearer  God," he said, unfazed  by the
disapproving,  sober faces around him. "They're in a tree, and we're  on the
ground."
     Mrs. Buster whirled on him. "I'd thought you were a  Christian, Charlie
Cool. My ideas of a Christian do not include  laughing at and  encouraging a
poor mad woman."
     "Mind who  you name  as  mad,  Thelma," said  the  Judge.  "That  isn't
especially Christian either."
     The Reverend Buster  opened fire.  "Answer  me this. Judge. Why did you
come with us if it wasn't to do the Lord's will in a spirit of mercy?"
     "The Lord's will?"  said the Judge  incredulously. "You dont  know what
that is any more than I do. Perhaps the Lord told these people to go live in
a  tree;  you'll admit,  at  least,  that He  never  told you  to  drag them
out-unless, of  course,  Verena Talbo is  the Lord, a theory  several of you
give credence to, eh Sheriff? No, sir, I  did  not come along to do anyone's
will  but my own: which merely means that  I felt like taking  a walk  - the
woods are very handsome at  this time of year." He picked some brown violets
and put them in his buttonhole.
     ŐTo  hell with all  that," began the Sheriff, and was again interrupted
by  Mrs.  Buster,  who  said that under no  circumstances would she tolerate
swearing: Will we. Reverend? and the  Reverend, backing her up, said he'd be
damned if  they would. "I'm  in  charge  here,"  the Sheriff  informed them,
thrusting his bully-boy jaw. "This is a matter for the law."
     "Whose law, Junius?" inquired Judge  Cool quietly. "Remember that I sat
in  the  courthouse twenty-seven years,  rather  a longer  time than  you've
lived. Take care. We  have no legal right  whatever to  interfere  with Miss
Dolly."
     Undaunted, the Sheriff hoisted himself a little into  the  tree. "Let's
don't have any more trouble," he said coaxingly, and we could see his curved
dog-teeth. "Come on down from there, the pack of  you."  As we continued  to
sit like three nesting birds  he showed  more of his teeth and, as though he
were trying to shake us out, angrily swayed a branch.
     "Miss  Dolly,  you've always been  a peaceful person,"  said  Mrs. Macy
Wheeler. "Please come  on home with us; you don't want to miss your dinner."
Dolly replied matter-of-faetly that we were  not hungry: were they? "There's
a drumstick for anybody that would like it."
     Sheriff  Candle  said, "You  make it  hard on  me,  ma'am," and  pulled
himself nearer. A branch, cracking under his weight, sent through the tree a
sad cruel thunder.
     "If  he lays a hand on any one of you, kick  him in the  head," advised
Judge Cool. "Or I  will," he  said  with sudden gallant pugnacity:  like  an
inspired frog he hopped  and  caught hold to  one of the Sheriff's  dangling
boots. The Sheriff, in turn, grabbed my ankles, and Catherine had to hold me
around  the  middle.  We  were  sliding,  that  we  should all  fall  seemed
inevitable,  the  strain was immense. Meanwhile, Dolly started pouring  what
was left of our orangeade down the Sheriff's neck, and abruptly, shouting an
obscenity, he let go of me. They crashed to  the ground,  the Sheriff on top
of the Judge  and the Reverend Buster  crushed  beneath them both. Mrs. Macy
Wheeler and  Mrs.  Buster, augmenting  the  disaster,  fell upon  them  with
crow-like cries of distress.
     Appalled  by what had  happened, and  the part  she herself had played.
Dolly became  so confused that  she dropped  the empty orangeade jar: it hit
Mrs. Buster on the  head  with  a  ripe thud. "Beg  pardon," she apologized,
though in the furor no one heard her.
     When  the tangle below unraveled, those concerned stood apart from each
other  embarrassedly, gingerly  feeling of  themselves. The  Reverend looked
rather flattened  out, but no broken  bones were discovered,  and only  Mrs.
Buster, on whose skimpy-haired head a bump was pyramiding, could have justly
complained  of injury.  She did so  forthrightly.  "You  attacked  me. Dolly
Talbo, don't deny it, everyone here is a witness,  everyone saw you aim that
mason jar at my head. Junius, arrest heri"
     The Sheriff, however, was involved in  settling differences of his own.
Hands on hips, swaggering, he bore down on the Judge, who was in the process
of replacing the violets in his buttonhole. "If you weren't so old, I'd damn
well knock you down."
     "I'm  not  so  old, Junius: just  old enough to think men  ought not to
fight  in front  of ladies," said the Judge. He  was a  fair-sized man  with
strong shoulders and a straight body: though not far from seventy, he looked
to be in  his fifties. He clenched his fists and they were hard and hairy as
coconuts. "On the other hand," he said grimly, "I'm ready if you are."
     At the  moment  it  looked like a fair enough  match.  Even the Sheriff
seemed not so sure of himself; with diminishing bravado, he spit between his
fingers,  and  said Well, nobody was going to accuse him  of hitting an  old
man. "Or standing up to one," Judge Cool retorted. "Go on, Junius, tuck your
shirt in your pants and trot along home."
     The  Sheriff appealed  to  us  in the tree. "Save yourselves  a lot  of
trouble:  get  out of there and come  along with me now."  We did not  stir,
except  that Dolly dropped her veil, as  though lowering  a  curtain on  the
subject once for  all.  Mrs. Buster, the lump on her head  like a horn, said
portentously, "Never  mind, Sheriff. They've had their chance," and,  eyeing
Dolly, (hen the Judge, added:  "You may  imagine you are  getting away  with
something. But let me  tell you there will be  a retribution -not in heaven,
right here on earth."
     "Right here on earth," harmonized Mrs. Macy Wheeler.
     They left along  the path, erect, haughty  as a wedding procession, and
passed into the sunlight where the  red rolling  grass swept  up,  swallowed
them. Lingering  under the tree, the Judge  smiled at  us and,  with a small
courteous bow, said: "Do I remember you offering a drumstick to anybody that
would likeit?"
     He  might have been put  together from parts of the tree, for his  nose
was  like a wooden peg, his legs  were strong as old roots, and his eyebrows
were thick, tough as strips of bark. Among the topmost branches  were beards
of  silvery  moss  the  color  of  his center-parted hair, and  the  cowhide
sycamore leaves, sifting down from a neighboring taller tree, were the color
of  his cheeks. Despite his canny, tomcat eyes, the general  impression  his
face made was that of someone shy and countrified. Ordinarily he was not the
one  to make a show of himself. Judge  Charlie Cool; there were many who had
taken advantage of his modesty to set themselves above him. Yet none of them
could have claimed, as  he could, to  be a graduate of Harvard University or
to have twice traveled in Europe. Still, there were those who were resentful
and felt that  he put on airs: wasn't he supposed  to read a  page  of Greek
every  morning before breakfast? and what  kind of a man  was it that  would
always have flowers in his  buttonhole? If  he wasn't  stuck up,  why,  some
people asked, had he gone  all the way to Kentucky to find a wife instead of
marrying one of our own women? I  do not remember the Judge's wife; she died
before I was old enough to be aware of her, therefore an that I repeat comes
second-hand. So: the town never warmed up to Irene  Cool, and apparently  it
was  her own fault. Kentucky  women are difficult  to begin with,  keyed-up,
hellion-hearted, and Irene Cool, who was born  a Todd in Bowling Green (Mary
Todd,  a second  cousin once  removed,  had  married  Abraham  Lincoln)  let
everyone  around  here  know she thought  them  a backward, vulgar  lot: she
received none of the ladies of the town, but Miss Palmer, who did sewing for
her, spread news of how she'd transformed the Judge's  house into a place of
taste and style with Oriental rugs and antique furnishings. She drove to and
from Church in a Pierce-Arrow with all  the windows rolled up, and in church
itself she sat with a  cologned handkerchief against her nose: the  smell of
God ain't good enough  for Irene Cool. Moreover, she would not permit either
of  the  local doctors to attend her family,  this  though she herself was a
semi-invalid: a small backbone  dislocation necessitated  her sleeping  on a
bed  of  boards. There were crude  jokes  about the  Judge  getting full  of
splinters. Nevertheless,  he fathered two  sons, Todd and  Charles Jr., both
born  in Kentucky where their mother had gone in order that they could claim
to be natives  of the bluegrass  state.  But those who tried to make out the
Judge got  the  brunt of his wife's  irritableness, that he was  a miserable
man, never had much  of a case, and after she died even the hardest of their
critics  had  to admit  old  Charlie  must surely  have loved his Irene. For
during the last two years of her life, when she was very ill and fretful, he
retired as circuit  judge, then took  her abroad to the places they had been
on their honeymoon. She never came  back; she is buried in  Switzerland. Not
so long ago Carrie Wells, a schoolteacher here in town, went on a group tour
to  Europe;  the  only thing  connecting our town  with  that  continent are
graves, the graves of soldier boys and Irene Cool; and Carrie,  armed with a
camera for snapshots, set  out to visit them all: though  she stumbled about
in a cloud-high cemetery one whole afternoon, she could not find the Judge's
wife,  and  it is  funny  to think  of  Irene  Cool,  serenely  there  on  a
mountain-side still  unwilling  to receive. There was not much left for  the
Judge when  he came back; politicians like Meiself Tallsap  and his gang had
come into power: those boys couldn't afford to have Charlie Cool sitting  in
the courthouse. It was sad to see  the Judge,  a fine-looking man dressed in
narrowcut suits with a black silk band sewn around his sleeve and a Cherokee
rose  in his buttonhole, sad to  see him with nothing to do except go to the
post  office  or  stop  in  at  the  bank. His sons  worked  in.  the  bank,
prissy-mouthed,  prudent  men who might  have been twins, for they both were
marshmallow-white, slump-shouldered,  watery-eyed. Charles  Jr., he was  the
one who had lost his hair while still in college,  was vice-president of the
bank, and Todd, the younger  son, was  chief  cashier. In  no  way  did they
resemble their  father, except that  they had  married Kentucky women. These
daughters-in-law had taken  over the  Judge's house  and divided it into two
apartments with separate entrances; there was an arrangement whereby (he old
man lived with first one son's family, then  the  other. No wonder he'd felt
like taking a walk to the woods.
     "Thank you. Miss Dolly," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his
hand. "That's the best drumstick I've had since I was a boy."
     "It's the least we can do, a drumstick; you were very brave." There was
in Dolly's voice an emotional, feminine tremor that struck me as unsuitable,
not dignified; so, too, it  must have seemed to Catherine: she gave  Dolly a
reprimanding glance. "Won't you have something more, a piece of cake?"
     "No  ma'm, thank you, I've had a sufficiency."  He unloosened from  his
vest a gold watch and chain, then lassoed the chain to a  strong  twig above
his  head; it hung like a Christmas ornament, and its feathery faded ticking
might have  been the heartbeat of a delicate thing, a firefly,  a frog.  "If
you  can  hear  time  passing  it makes the day  last  longer. I've  come to
appreciate a long day." He brushed back the fur  of the squirrels, which lay
curled in a corner as though they were only asleep. "Right through the head:
good shooting, son."
     Of course I gave the credit to the proper party. "Riley Hen-derson, was
it?" said the  Judge,  and  went on  to  say it  was Riley who  had  let our
whereabouts  be  known.  "Before  that, they must  have sent off  a  hundred
dollars'  worth of telegrams," he told us, tickled at the thought. "I  guess
it was the idea of all that money that made Verena take to her bed."
     Scowling, Dolly said, "It doesn't make a particle of sense, all of them
behaving ugly that  way. They seemed  mad enough  to kill us, though I can't
see  why, or what it has to do with  Verena: she knew  we were going away to
leave her  in peace, I  told her, I even left  a note. But if she's  sick-is
she. Judge? I've never known her to be."
     "Never a day," said Catherine.
     "Oh, she's upset all right,"  the Judge said with a certain contentment
"But  Verena's not the woman to come down  with anything an aspirin couldn't
fix. I remember when she wanted to rearrange the  cemetery, put up some kind
of mausoleum to  house  herself and all you Talbos. One of the ladies around
here  came to me and  said  Judge, don't you think Verena Talbo is  the most
morbid person in town, contemplating such a big tomb for herself? and I said
No, the  only thing morbid was that  she was willing to spend the money when
not for an instant did she believe she was ever going to die."
     "I  don't  like to hear  talk against my  sister,"  said  Dolly curtly.
"She's worked hard, she deserves to have things as she wants them. It's  our
fault, someway we failed her, there was no place for us in her house."
     Catherine's  cotton-wadding squirmed in her Jaw like  chewing  tobacco.
"Are you my  Dollyheart? or some hypocrite? He's a friend, you ought to tell
him the truth, how That One and the little Jew was stealing our medicine..."
     The  Judge  applied  for a  translation,  but Dolly said it was  simply
nonsense,  nothing worth repeating  and, diverting him, asked if he knew how
to skin a squirrel.  Nodding dreamily, he gazed away from us, above us,  his
acomlike  eyes  scanning  the sky-fringed, breeze-fooled  leaves. "It may be
that  there is no place  for any of us. Except we  know there is, somewhere;
and if we found it, but lived  there only a moment, we could count ourselves
blessed. This could be  your place," he said, shivering as though in the sky
spreading wings had cask a cold shade. "And mine."
     Subtly as the  gold watch spun its  sound of time, the afternoon curved
toward twilight. Mist from the river, autumn haze, trailed moon-colors among
the  bronze,  the  blue trees, and  a halo, an image of  winter, ringed  the
paling sun. Still the Judge did  not leave us: 'Two women and  a boy? at the
mercy  of  night? and Junius Candle, those  fools up to God knows what?  I'm
sticking with you." Surely, of the four of us, it was the Judge who had most
found his place in the tree. It was a pleasure to watch him, all  twinkly as
a hare's nose, and feeling himself a man again, more than that, a protector.
He skinned  the squirrels with a  jackknife,  while  in the  dusk I gathered
sticks and built under the tree a fire for the frying pan.  Dolly opened the
bottle of blackberry wine; she justified this by referring to a chill in the
air. The squirrels turned out quite well,  very tender,  and  the Judge said
proudly that  we should taste his fried catfish sometime. We sipped the wine
in  silence; a smell  of  leaves and smoke  carrying from  the cooling  fire
called up thoughts  of other autumns,  and we sighed, heard, like  sea-roar,
singings in the field of grass. A candle flickered in a mason jar, and gipsy
moths, balanced, blowing  about  the flame, seemed  to pilot  its  scarf  of
yellow among the black branches.
     There  was,  just then,  not  a  footfall,  but  a  nebulous  sense  of
intrusion: it might have been nothing more than the moon coming  out. Except
there was no moon; nor stars.  It was dark as the blackberry wine.  "I think
there is  someone-something down there," said Dolly, expressing what  we all
felt
     The Judge lifted  the  candle.  Night-crawlers slithered away from  its
lurching light, a  snowy owl flew  between  the trees. "Who  goes there?" he
challenged with the conviction of a soldier. "Answer up, who goes there?"
     "Me, Riley Henderson." It  was  indeed.  He separated from the shadows,
and his  upraised, grinning face looked  warped, wicked in the  candlelight.
"Just thought I'd see how you were getting on. Hope you're not sore at me: I
wouldn't have told where you were, not if I'd known what it was all about."
     "Nobody blames you, son," said  the Judge,  and I remembered it was  he
who had championed  Riley's cause against his uncle Horace Holton: there was
an understanding  between them.  "We're enjoying a  small taste of wine. I'm
sure Miss Dolly would be pleased to have you join us."
     Catherine complained there was no room;  another ounce,  and  those old
boards  would give way. StiB,  we  scrunched  together  to make a  place for
Riley, who  had no sooner squeezed into it than Catherine grabbed a  fistful
of his hair. "That's for today  with you pointing your gun at us like I told
you not to; and  this,"  she said, yanking  again and speaking distinctively
enough to be understood, "pays you back for setting the Sheriff on us."
     It  seemed to me  that  Catherine was  impertinent, but  Riley  grunted
good-naturedly,  and  said  she  might  have  better  cause  to  be  pulling
somebody's  hair  before the  night  was over.  For there  was, he  told us,
excited  feelings in the town, crowds  like Saturday night; the Reverend and
Mrs. Buster especially  were brewing trouble: Mrs. Buster was sitting on her
front porch showing callers the bump  on  her head. Sheriff Candle, he said,
had persuaded Verona to authorize a  warrant  for our  arrest on the grounds
that we had stolen property belonging to her.
     "And Judge," said Riley, his manner grave, perplexed, Őthey've even got
the idea they're going to arrest you. Disturbing the peace  and  obstructing
justice, that's  what  I heard. Maybe I shouldn't tell you this-but  outside
the bank I ran into one of your boys, Todd. I asked him what he was going to
do  about it, about  them arresting you, I mean; and  he said  Nothing, said
they'd  been expecting something  of  the  kind, that  you'd  brought it  on
yourself."
     Leaning,  the Judge  snuffed  out  the  candle;  it was  as  though  an
expression was occurring in his face which he did not want us to see. In the
dark one of us was crying, after a moment we knew that it was Dolly, and the
sound of her tears set off silent explosions of love that, running  the full
circle round, bound us each to the other. Softly, the Judge said: "When they
come we must be ready for them. Now, everybody listen to me..."

        Three

     We must  know  our  position  to  defend  it;  that  is a primary rule.
Therefore:  what  has  brought  us  together?  Trouble.  Miss  Dolly and her
friends,  they are in trouble. You, Riley; we both are in trouble. We belong
in this tree or  we wouldn't be here." Dolly grew silent under the confident
sound of the Judge's  voice; he said:  "Today,  when I started out with  the
Sheriffs  party,  I  was  a man  convinced  that  his  life will have passed
un-communicated and without trace. I think now that I  will not have been so
unfortunate.  Miss Dolly,  how long? fifty, sixty years? it was that far ago
that I  remember  you, a stiff  and  blushing  child riding to town in  your
father's wagon-never getting down from the wagon  because you didn't want us
town-children to see you had no shoes."
     "They had shoes. Dolly and That One,"  Catherine  muttered. "It  was me
that didn't have no shoes."
     "All  the  years  that  I've  seen  you,  never  known  you,  not  ever
recognized, as I did today, what you are: a spirit, a pagan..."
     "A pagan?" said Dolly, alarmed but interested.
     "At  least, then, a  spirit, someone not  to  be calculated by the  eye
alone.  Spirits  are  accepters of  life,  they  grant  its  differences-and
consequently are  always in trouble. Myself,  I should  never  have  been  a
Judge; as such, I was  too often  on  the wrong side:  the law doesn't admit
differences.  Do you remember old Carper,  the fisherman who had a houseboat
on the river? He was chased out of  town-wanted  to marry that pretty little
colored girl, I think she  works for Mrs. Postum now; and you know she loved
him, I  used to see them when I went fishing, they were very happy together;
she was to him what no one has been to me, the one person in the world- from
whom  nothing is held back. Still, if he had succeeded in  marrying her,  it
would have been the Sheriff's duty to arrest and my  duty to sentence him. I
sometimes  imagine all  those whom I've called  guilty  have passed the real
guilt on to me: it's partly  that that makes me want once before I die to be
right on the right side."
     "You on the right side now. That One and the Jew..."
     "Hush," said Dolly.
     "The  one  person  in the world." It was  Riley  repeating  the Judge's
phrase; his voice lingered inquiringly.
     "I mean," the  Judge explained,  "a person  to  whom everything can  be
said. Am I an idiot to want such a thing? But ah, the energy we spend hiding
from  one another, afraid as  we are of  being identified. But here  we are,
identified: five fools in a tree. A great piece of luck provided we know how
to use it: no longer any need to worry about the picture we present -free to
find out who we truly are. If we know that no one can dislodge us;  it's the
uncertainty  concerning themselves that makes our friends  conspire  to deny
the  differences. By  scraps and bits I've in the past surrendered myself to
strangers-men  who  disappeared down  the  gangplank, got  off  at the  next
station: put  together,  maybe they  would've  made the  one  person in  the
world-but there he is with a  dozen  different faces moving  down  a hundred
separate  streets. This is  my chance  to find  that  man-you are him.  Miss
Dolly, Riley, all of you."
     Catherine said, "I'm no man with  any dozen  faces: tile notion," which
irritated Dolly, who told her if she couldn't speak respectably why not just
go to sleep. "But Judge,"  said Dolly,  "I'm not sure I know what it  is you
have in mind we should tell each other. Secrets?" she finished lamely.
     "Secrets,  no,  no."  The  Judge  scratched  a match and relighted  the
candle; his face sprang upon us with an expression unexpectedly pathetic: we
must  help him, he was pleading.  "Speak of the  night, the fact there is no
moon. What one says hardly matters,  only the trust  with  which it is said,
the sympathy  with which it is received. Irene, my wife, a remarkable woman,
we might have shared anything, and yet, yet nothing in us combined, we could
not touch.  She died in  my arms, and  at  the last  I said. Are you  happy,
Irene? have I made you happy? Happy happy  happy, those were her last words:
equivocal. I  have never  understood  whether  she was saying yes, or merely
answering with an echo: I  should know if I'd  ever known her. My sons. I do
not  enjoy their esteem: I've wanted  it, more as a man  than  as a  father.
Unfortunately, (hey feel they know something shameful about me. Ill tell you
what it  is." His virile  eyes, faceted with candle-glow, examined us one by
one, as though testing our attention, trust "Five  years  ago, nearer six, I
sat  down  in a train-seat  where some child had left  a child's magazine. I
picked  it up  and was  looking through  it  when I  saw  on  the back cover
addresses of children who  wanted  to correspond with  other children. There
was a little girl in  Alaska, her name appealed to me. Heather Falls. I sent
her a picture postcard; Lord, it seemed a harmless and pleasant thing to do.
She  answered at once,  and the letter  quite astonished me; it  was  a very
intelligent account  of life in Alaska-charming descriptions of her father's
sheep ranch, of northern  lights. She was thirteen and enclosed a photograph
of herself-not pretty, but a wise and kind  looking child.  I hunted through
some  old albums,  and  found  a  Kodak made  on  a fishing trip  when I was
fifteen-out in the sun and