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The ants scurried like shooting sparks: thinking of Idabel, he hopped about mashing them underfoot, but this sinful dance did nothing toward lessening the hurt of her insults. Wait! Wait till he was Governor: he'd sic the law on her, have her locked in a dungeon cell with a little trapdoor cut in the ceiling where he could look down and laugh.
But when the Landing came in full view, its rambling outline darkened by foliage, he forgot Idabel.
Like kites being reeled in, the chicken hawks circled lower till their shadows revolved over the slanting shingled roof. The shaft of smoke lifting from the chimney mounted unbroken in the hot windless air; a sign, at least, that people lived here. Joel had known and explored other houses quiet with emptiness, but none so deserted-looking, silent: it was as though the place were captured under a cone of glass; inside, waiting to claim him, was an afternoon of endless boredom: each step, and his shoes were heavy as though soled with stone, carried him closer. A whole afternoon. And how many more for how many months?
Then, approaching the mailbox, seeing its cheerful red flag still upraised, the good feeling came back: Ellen would make things different, she would fix it so he could go away to a school where everybody was like everybody else. Singing the song about snow and the northwind, he stopped and jerked open the mailbox; deep inside lay a thick stack of letters, sealed, as he found, in watergreen envelopes. It was like the stationery his father had used when writing Ellen. And the spidery handwriting was identical: Mr Pepe Alvarez, c/o the postmaster, Monterrey, Mexico, Then Mr Pepe Alvarez, c/o the postmaster, Fukuoka, Japan. Again, again. Seven letters, all addressed to Mr Pepe Alvarez, in care of postmasters in: Camden, New Jersey; Lahore, India; Copenhagen, Denmark; Barcelona, Spain; Keokuk, Iowa.
But his letters were not among these. He certainly remembered putting them in the box. Little Sunshine had seen him. And Zoo. So where were they? Of course: the mailman must've come along already. But why hadn't he heard or seen the mailman's car? It was a half-wrecked Ford and made considerable racket. Then, in the dust at his feet, torn from the toilet-paper wrapping, he saw his coins, a nickel and a pe
At this same instant the sound of bullet fire cracked whip-like on the quiet: Joel, stooping for his money, turned a paralyzed face toward the house: there was no one on the porch, the path, not a sign of life anywhere. Another shot. The wings of the hawks raged as they fled over tree tops, their shadows sweeping across the road's broiling sand like islands of dark.
Part Two
6
"Hold still," said Zoo, her eyes like satin in the kitchen, lamplight. "Never saw such a fidget; best hold still and let me cut this hair: can't have you ru
Joel squirmed. "So what did you say after she said that?" he asked, anxious she return to a previous topic.
"Said what?"
"Said you've got a big nerve shooting off rifles when Randolph's so sick."
"Huh," Zoo grunted, "why, I just come right out and tol her, tol her: 'Miss Amy, them hawks fixin to steal the place off our hands less we shoo em away. Said, 'Done fly off with a dozen fat fryers this spring a'ready, and Mister Randolph, he go
Removing the bowl, making a telescope of her hands, she roamed around Joel's chair viewing his haircut from all angles. "Now that's what I calls a good trim," she said. "Go look in the window."
Evening silvered the glass, and his face reflected transparently, changed and mingled with moth-moving lamp yellow; he saw himself, and through himself, and beyond; a night bird whistled in the fig leaves, a whippoorwill, and fireflies sprinkled the blue-flooded air, rode the dark like ship lights. The haircut was disfiguring, for it made him in silhouette resemble those idiots with huge world-globe heads, and now, because of Randolph's flattery, he was self-conscious about his looks. "It's awful," he said.
"Huh," said Zoo, dishing supper scraps into a lard can reserved for pig slop, "you is as ignorant as that Keg Brown. Course he was the most ignorant human in my acquaintance. But you is both ignorant."
Joel, imitating Randolph, arched an eyebrow, and said: "I daresay I know some things I daresay you don't."
Zoo's elegant grace disappeared as she strode about clearing the kitchen: the floor creaked under her animal footfall, and, as she bent to lower the lamp, the hurt sadness of her long face gleamed like a mask. "I daresays," she said, plucking at her neckerchief, and not looking at Joel, "I daresays you is smarter'n Zoo, but I reckon as she knows better about folks feelins; leastwise, she don't go round makin folks feel no-count for no cause whatsoever."
"Aw," said Joel, "aw, I was just joking, honest," and, hugging her, smothered his face against her middle; she smelled sweet, a curious dark sour sweet, and her fingers, gliding through his hair, were cool, strong. "I love you because you've got to love me because you've got to."
"Lord, Lord," said Zoo, disengaging herself, "you is nothin but a kitty now, but comes the time you is full growed… what a Tom you go
Standing in the doorway he watched her lamp divide the dark, saw Jesus Fever's windows color: here he was, and there she was, and there was all of night between them. It had been a curious evening, for Randolph kept to his room, and Amy, fixing supper trays, one for Randolph and the other, presumably, Mr. Sansom's (she'd said: "Mr. Sansom won't eat cold peas"), had stopped at the table only long enough to swallow a tumbler of buttermilk. But Joel had talked, and in talking eased away his worries, and Zoo told tales, tall fu
From the first he'd noticed in the house complex sounds, sounds on the edge of silence, settling sighs of stone and board, as though the old rooms inhaled-exhaled constant wind, and he'd heard Randolph say: "We're sinking, you know, sank four inches last year." It was drowning in the earth, this house, and they, all of them, were submerging with it: Joel, moving through the chamber, imagined moles tracing silver tu