Girl from JakesCannon

REVIEWS

 . . . the story starts with a bang  . . .  how and where and who will die remain tantalizing mysteries as the pursuit takes the players to the west coast, and the story branches out to include some stellar war scenes and some sleazy Hollywood doings.  . . .  the narrative voice crackles with personality, and the pacing accelerates like a runaway train. —

publishers weekly

Girl from JakesCannon is extremely well-written. The historic sweep of years is informative and sets up the characters with a great background, giving the reader a foundation upon which the author can easily weave a convincing story. The descriptions are lovingly, honestly detailed even to the unsavory habits and aspects of mountain life, yet an essential charm remains.  . . .  A tantalizing introduction! —

abna review

The writing is terse. The ideas flow very rapidly, almost machine gun style. —

abna review

Girl from JakesCannon was a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest, top 100 of 10,000 entrants.

Girl from JakesCannon

by

Richard Eugene Stewart

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Richard Eugene Stewart on Smashwords

Girl from JakesCannon

Copyright © 2007 by Richard Eugene Stewart

Cover art copyright © 2010 Richard Eugene Stewart.

All rights reserved.

Published December 2010

also available in Paperback

Library of Congress Control Number: pfh71391

ISBN: 1453841393

EAN-13: 9781453841396

http://www.richardeugenestewart.com

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

* * * * *

Dedication

To my wife, Anne, without whom Girl from JakesCannon would have remained an unwritten dream.

And to my daughter, Jennifer, whose encouragement and prodding got me off the dime to finish it.

* * * * *

PROLOGUE

Like a mouse hole in a wheat field, JakesCannon is hidden deep in the forests of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. For nearly half a century it had been known as Pine Gulley. Then, near the end of the Civil War, it was renamed in honor of Hubert Jakes, an ex-merchant seaman who, some years before, in order to cheat the gallows for grinding out his skipper's eyes with a broken rum bottle, had fled to the inland wilderness. A fiercely private man, Jakes ironically attained provincial fame in the autumn of 1864 when he positioned an abandoned rebel eight-pounder on the ridge behind what was to become the site of the Curry & Burrus Lumber Mill, and there with his wife, two sons and daughter, held back a force of Yankee infantry for nearly five hours. Although he was ultimately de-brained by a Bluecoat sniper, his resolute stand permitted the successful retreat of some 200 rag-tag Virginia Volunteers.

Jakes's neighbors knew that he was more pragmatist than hero and had only done what he did to keep his whiskey still from being overrun by outlanders. However, because his deed was so romanticized throughout the beleaguered South, sparks of chauvinism were struck from the flint-rock hearts of Pine Gulleyites. Folks who had despised one another for generations got together to ride the tail of their fast-burning little comet by changing the name of Pine Gulley to JakesCannon. Pine Gulley, after all, was but a homely description of the village's location; which is to say, it was a gulley in the pines. JakesCannon, on the other hand, seemed to possess the power to bestow upon its citizens the mantle of celebrity—an indulgence not unlike the collective esteem enjoyed today by towns whose teams win baseball pennants and such.

Of the Pine Gulleyites who met on that occasion, a temperate minority put forth the name "Jakes's STILL" as a Christian way of preserving the basic truth of the town's one historical moment. However, the intemperate majority insisted that any town named after a still would draw revenooers to it like flies to horseshit. So, JakesCannon it was. And is.

Isolation and hand-me-down ignorance locked it in a time warp; mule-farming, hunting, trapping, fishing and whiskey-making remained the whole of its industry. News of the outside world came only by way of an occasional Circuit Preacher, riding in to spread the fear of God. Whatever benefits Pine Gulleyites had hoped would result from the name-change never occurred. On the contrary, while the American Ship of Progress was steaming into bright new waters, the folks of JakesCannon weren't even looking for a pier.

Then, in 1930, two Boston College seniors whose trust funds had recently matured and who had, with awesome foresight, multiplied their fortunes by selling short on the Bear Market of Black November, opted to invest some of their chips acquiring (at less than a penny on the dollar) a large portion of the southwest quadrant of the state. The area comprised thousands of acres of top grade timber, coal, minerals and a forgotten Confederate Army railroad leg, which began at a junction of the main line and wound south through 26 miles of wooded mountains to its rotted turnaround at the once briefly celebrated town of JakesCannon. There, in the shadow of Hubert Jakes's hallowed ridge, the two fuzzy-cheeked millionaires erected the Curry & Burrus Lumber Mill.

Before the first saw arrived, there was an influx of job-seeking outlanders who threw up a tent city and within days were calling other newcomers outlanders. Burgeoning industry brought not only the indigent in search of employment and scoundrels in search of suckers, but also a dramatic updating of local culture. High-toned Curry & Burrus management personnel, being accustomed to more cosmopolitan law and order, were appalled by the rowdy nights that followed each payday. So they imported a former Marine Drill Sergeant—a gun-slinging head-knocker who had tamed an infamous oil town in Oklahoma—made him sheriff, and built him a jailhouse. The wives of the Curry & Burrus management personnel, having their own ideas of civic improvement, revolted in a pact to withhold their favors until their husbands agreed to build them a church (Non-denominational Church of Christ) and the little schoolhouse.

About then, Dudley Rooke, stationmaster at the main line junction 26 miles to the north, began to notice the variety and quantity of store-bought goods being highballed south on the refurbished JakesCannon leg. After some careful probability-estimating, the old bachelor, who still had four cents of every nickel he'd ever earned, retired from the railroad and invested his life savings in the town's only general store.

Electric and telephone lines were strung in, although the latter were solely for the benefit of the mill managers and peace officers. JakesCannoneers, as they had come to call themselves, neither knew how to use a telephone nor had anyone to call.

Nearly everyone went to work at the mill or at one of its score of satellite jobs. Farmers quit their can see to can't see scrabbling in dirt and rushed to get a share of the cosmic twenty cents an hour wages being throwed away by them dang fools at Curry & Burrus. Hunters, trappers, fishermen and finally even up-mountain whiskey makers succumbed to the lure of easy money.

Once widespread and violent, rivalry in the booze business ended; only one man continued making distilled spirits on a full-time basis. He was small and wiry, with large thumbs and a physical strength that belied his size: He could pull a mule to its knees by hauling on its ears. His strength was matched by his ignorance and, like most ignorant men, found humor only in perversity. For example, recalling the dreadful details of his uncle's death provoked his laughter. The poor uncle had died of arsenic poisoning, writhing and jerking for hours until, in the final spasm, his back had arched so grotesquely it snapped like a dry stick. Because rigor mortis overtook his body in the death-posture, it had been necessary to bury him in a petroleum barrel as it was the only available container large enough to accommodate his hideously disarranged torso. Later, it was learned that a squirrel, stuffed with rat-killer, had been left in one of his coon traps. When the moonshiner married the deceased uncle's 13-year-old daughter and laid claim to his cabin and whiskey trade, a lot of up-mountain folks enthusiastically quit eating squirrel meat.

The young moonshiner and his cousin/bride worked the still for all it was worth, which wasn't much until the 1930 Curry & Burrus boom, when the local population swelled and competition shrank. The couple sold their vegterball-drippins to every tippler in town, including the sheriff. By then they had produced two sons and a daughter . . . just like Hubert Jakes.

1933 stumbled in wearing tattered diapers; America stood in the bread-line of a stultifying depression. The new President hauled out his New Deal, which introduced an alphabet of administrative agencies—the NRA, FERA, WPA, PWA, CCC, CWA, etc. Moreover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) sought to curb the rampant ravaging of natural resources by reenacting some old conservation laws. The New Deal was a good deal to some but a bum deal to Curry & Burrus; for, while the minimum wage was hiked to twenty-five cents an hour, the hands of conservation simultaneously slowed the lumber mill to half speed. The twenty-percent pay raise coupled with a forced production drop of fifty percent inspired Curry & Burrus to pink-slip ninety percent of its employees.

By 1941, the population of JakesCannon had dwindled markedly, the moonshiner's cousin/wife was mercifully near death, and their children were all growed-up and haired-over.

Of the moonshiner's three children, there was no doubt that the two half-wit boys were his. With small eyes and wide features, which were incipiently Mongoloid, they looked just like him and like each other. Both were bed-wetters and, until well past puberty, wore pads of torn cloth in their pants when they slept. They grew as tall and as simple as hollyhocks and, though their father worked them like mules, they flourished. Like their father, they were as illiterate as stones and never learned many words or names of things; they developed a way of communicating with each other through the issuance of grunts, rather like those made by wallowing swine. Their basic recreation consisted of chasing pell-mell through the forests after hounds-on-scent of some woodland animal over which they would then masturbate.

In a most primitive way, by means of practical interdependence, father and sons became bonded. Their long hours together eventually evoked in them a male elitism which inexorably reached the stage of familial separateness—a condition secretly welcomed by the mother. On the night the men moved into the barn because it was closer to the still and the outhouse and the smokehouse, she could barely suppress an open display of giddiness. Obsessed with saving her daughter from potential incestuous abuse, the move meant a respite, however temporary, from her exhausting vigil.

As her daughter grew, the mother's fear grew, fear that the father would see the miraculous difference in his brood, fear that he would awake to the fact that the Girl was not of his issue. Optionless, she could do little but pray that the dull perceptions that God had inflicted on her husband and sons would continue to divert their manifest baseness.

Just 43, her seamed face, rotting teeth and wasted body made her look ancient; and though she knew death was closing in, she was grateful that her husband no longer cared to mount her.

One morning, while gathering wood, a raven landed on a nearby branch; it seemed to be looking at her, into her. After a few moments, it blinked and fell dead at her feet. Recognizing the sign that her time was at hand, she sought a way to prepare her daughter to survive without her, to ready her for what she herself had never known: life in the outland.

June 1941 Saturday

June 1941: six and one half months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; the month and year the Nazis ceased their daily destruction of London and ordered their war eagles to Russia where the inevitable denouement of Hitler's insane drama was about to begin. Ironically, the slaughter in Europe placed America at the open end of a rearmament cornucopia; life was good and getting better. Tragic realities abroad were somehow modified in movies and popular music.

Hundreds of thousands of boys were pressed into military service by a third-term president who had been re-elected on a platform of No War. The one-year-only draftees believed it when the Andrews Sisters sang, I'll be seeing you in Apple Blossom time.

Mickey Mouse, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Joe DiMaggio, Clark Gable, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Bette Davis, Mickey Rooney, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, were but a few of the phonebook of names known to nearly every American over the age of seven.

Of course, there were exceptions.

CHAPTER ONE

The JakesCannon schoolmarm stared at the stuttering minute hand on the pendulum clock. As soon as it reached the hour, she heard the door quietly open and bare feet tip-toe in. Abigail Thurmond was as sensible and frilless as the clothes she wore. Though her 35th birthday had come and gone, she did not think of herself as a spinster but merely as a woman who had not yet married. Twice in her life she had received ardent proposals but on both occasions her suitors had, through lack of carnal restraint, proven themselves too . . . worldly.

At the core of her orderly life was the discipline of Christian fundamentalism, a discipline which, in her view, nailed too many professed adherents to the cross of hypocrisy. Convinced that the scriptural promise of man's dominion over the earth could be fulfilled only through man's dominion over himself, she believed that all human feelings should be subordinated to the majesty of thought and strained through the sieve of the frontal lobes. Practical application of this exacting philosophy was as easy for her as the retention of her virginity, which she had never once been tempted to surrender. Furthermore, because she had not been so tempted, she saw no reason to treasure the condition as a source of puffering pride, but regarded it merely as the inevitable math of natural circumstance. Abigail Thurmond was sensible.

Was sensible!

Before.

Before the stone of her entombed affections had been rolled away. Before she started teaching the mountain girl to read. Before she discovered within herself the presence of an alien beast: terrible, hungering . . . beguiling.

Now, as the Girl approached, Abigail Thurmond fought against panic by pretending to organize erasers in the blackboard tray. With The Beast pounding in her chest like a jailed lunatic, she fussed with the Confederate and American flags, dimly aware that they were symbols of a divided whole—a unit vanquished by itself—and she thought fleetingly of suicide. Maverick passion filled her with a loathsome desire to take the Girl's adorable face in her hands and draw it to hers until their lips met in smoldering kisses; to explore the velvet of her secret places, and to love her . . . as a man would.

Instead, she clenched her hands so tightly that her nails penetrated the meaty part of her thumbs. She closed her eyes and inhaled the comforting smell of her classroom, the aroma of pine and linseed oil: the perfume of sanity.

May Jesus Christ forgive me as he did the prostitute; for as I have sinned in my heart, so have I sinned in deed.

Blessedly, the sea of madness receded, carrying with it its destructive flotsam. Abigail Thurmond relaxed her hands and turned to face the Girl for whom the moment had passed as quickly as the shadow of a darting bird.

You're still using the toothbrush I gave you? the teacher asked abruptly, almost harshly. The muttered reply was barely audible. Speak up, Girl.

Yes ma'am, the Girl repeated, tossing back her golden mane and facing the teacher squarely.

The hungering thing inside Abigail Thurmond demanded an immediate inventory of the Girl, her flawless, sun-bronzed skin; eyes of Morning-Glory blue, guarded by thick, dark lashes; the straight, delicate nose; the serene, sensuous mouth where tiny dimples winked and danced at the corners; the supple body, bursting with unawakened sexuality and sheathed in a simple cotton dress which, though crudely made, was graced merely by the Girl's wearing of it. Perhaps, the beast mocked, because it reveals so much of what it is intended to conceal.

Let's have a look then, the teacher said, keeping a safe distance. The Girl blushed but complied with an exaggerated, self-conscious smile, upper teeth in direct contact with the lower. Hmmm, the teacher murmured, leaning forward. Very nice. Gums, firm and pink. Enamel, clean and white. All as it should be. Quite an improvement. You do see the difference now, don't you . . . dear?

Oh, yes, ma'am! The Girl was suddenly animated, as though a switch had been thrown. I do jes' lak ye tol' me. I scour 'em ever' day with tooth soap. Up an' down. Up an' down.

"What will you do when the tooth paste is gone and the brush is no longer serviceable?"

Why, ah'll jes' skeeter on down to Rooke's Emporium an' cash-buy me some new.

By crossing to the window, the teacher was able to thwart an impulse to reach out and touch the Girl's breast. Where will you get cash, child? she asked her own wretched reflection.

Well! When Maw saw how m' mouth quit t' bleedin'—an' I tol' her whut yew said 'bout eatin' oranges an' vegterballs, an' all-whut-else yew said—Maw said she'd give me cash as-ever I needs it fer them things whut makes me, well, makes me . . .

Miss Thurmond turned to see the Girl blush. Pretty? she coaxed, urgently repelling another rush of dangerous affection.

. . . Yes'm. But then, a'course, she's m' Maw.

Sweet God! If only you knew? If you had a scintilla of an idea of what you are, what you could be—anywhere in the world but here. The thought of kidnapping capriced insanely in her mind until the voice of her Baptist conscience rose above the ranting Beast and begged her to stop . . . before she was hopelessly unable to.

I'm going away, she blurted.

There! One sudden dagger-thrust. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. I'm going away. She had said her word and, having said it, would make it manifest. She would send the telegram which had lay on her dresser for days—the telegram addressed to faceless executives in Boston who manipulated the diverse empire of Curry & Burrus. I have accepted a new position. In California.

The Girl's expression remained unchanged and could not have been more devoid of concern if she had just been informed that it was now ten minutes past nine. Disoriented by the Girl's passivity, Miss Thurmond felt the moment stretch awkwardly. Finally, she asked, Do you remember where California is? and strode purposefully to the wall map behind her desk. Here is the Atlantic ocean. We are . . . here. And this is the Pacific ocean, with California . . . here. Three thousand miles away.

The Girl's eyes remained blindly fixed on where her teacher had stood before moving to the map.

I regret to say that this will be our last Saturday morning together. Abigail Thurmond's heart shriveled. Where was the anticipated sharing of reciprocal sadness, the warm commiseration of mutual loss acknowledged? Hadn't she meant enough to this girl to warrant some visible sign of regret?

Then, she saw that the Girl was not being passive but stoic! She recognized in the Girl's trembling chin, a gift! An apple for the teacher. She would be missed by this wondrous creature!—even if the only reason was that she had taught her to read, and had given up her Saturday mornings to do so. That she longed to be missed for other reasons was the exact reason she had to leave JakesCannon.

I am very proud of you, my dear. You did so well with Tom Sawyer, I want you to have this . . .  She shoved a book across the polished desk. It's by the same author. It's called— But of course, you can read it yourself. Can't you?

The Girl swiped at a tear, which had escaped to her cheek, and stepped forward, staring at the book. She picked it up reverently—a fragile, precious egg—and with her fingertips, touched each word of the title, silently forming them with her lips. When she was ready, she looked up at the teacher and confidently announced, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Beneath the desk, Abigail Thurmond's hands convulsed again into a torturing fist, restraining the awful need to say I love you, and to sweep the Girl into her arms. Instead, she vigorously pushed her chair back with a scraping sound and stood: The JakesCannon Schoolmarm, in charge of her class. I must ask you now to take the book and go. I have much to prepare, many things to do before I depart. Fortunately, the spring semester ended yesterday and summer hiatus has arrived. I strongly recommend that when school opens in the fall . . . She babbled on, shuffling papers, performing a charade of detached pedantry. She didn't hear the Girl's tearfully whispered words of gratitude and affection. When she finally looked, the Girl was gone.

For some time she stared at a mote-filled pillar of sunlight, which slanted onto the floor where the Girl had stood, while the clock tick-tick-ticked its relentless subtraction of life's seconds. Empty desks, empty room, empty-ness. Sensible Abigail Thurmond was alone. Again.

* * * * *

Private Walter The Pork Smedley stuck the last of the morning's three Baby Ruth bars between his lips and left it dangling there like a dog turd while he adjusted the focus ring on the Captain's binoculars. After a couple of turns, the blurry image merged into a clear, remarkably close view of the schoolhouse below and some two hundred yards away.

Smedley was sure that the Girl would be in there. He had seen her on each of the two preceding Saturday mornings and concluded that her movements on these days were routine. Because he needed to be absolutely certain that what he had seen was not merely the result of his own fantasies projected to the degree of hallucinatory wish-fulfillment, he had asked the Corporal to get him the Captain's field glasses.

Hah! Smedley thought. The Corporal went right into the CC's tent and said he needed the field glasses. No explanation, nothin. Jeez! If we wasn't movin out today—if we had to spend one more week up here in the boonies, the Corporal would flat own the fuckin’ outfit.

The Captain was a young career soldier who had recently suffered a near-tragic miscalculation: He had considered himself a man who merely drank a little. But, after a week on maneuvers—seven spartan days and nights away from the Post Exchange and Officer's Club—he had begun to manifest the nightmarish symptoms of a withdrawing alcoholic. Sudden, inordinate sweating, hollow darting eyes and uncontrollably fluttering hands were the unmistakable harbingers of disgrace.

Fortunately, the Corporal—alert to any opportunity that might net him extra privileges—had been the first to recognize the Captain's struggle with cold turkey and had discreetly contacted a nearby farmer with whom he bartered Government Issue for good, up-mountain whiskey. The going rate was six 20-gauge shotgun shells and one pair of canvas-top, gum-soled U.S. Keds in exchange for three canteens full of prime, aged-in-the-jug Corn. The drop spot was a big boulder in the steep woods above the train trestle where, on Saturday mornings while the army was at chow, Smedley was sent to fetch.

It was on the first of these mornings that Smedley had seen the barefoot girl walk across the grass by the swings in front of the little schoolhouse. The sun, cresting the mountain on the other side of the gulley, had sent down vaults of light to fire her golden hair and burn through the perimeters of her thin cotton dress, outlining her body in a radiant halo. Occupied with transferring the contents of the farmer's jugs to canteens, Smedley had been slow to consciously register the dreamlike vision and by the time he gathered some presence of mind, the Girl had disappeared inside the building. Then on the following Saturday, having overslept, he arrived at the rock as the Girl came out, crossed the lawn, and disappeared in the forest. He had wanted to follow her right then, to see her up close. But, as always, when one-on-one confrontation with a girl was possible, fear bullied his desire.

Smedley had never had a real girlfriend. Until the Army rearranged it a little, his body had resembled a ruined pear. During prep school he'd been plagued with oily facial pores, which regularly erupted in humiliating volcanoes of puss. Female rejection was as familiar to him as his penis. Aside from pertinacious masturbation, his only sexual experience had occurred on Prom Night when seven members of the football varsity magnanimously permitted The Pork to pungle up the entire cost of gang-banging the town hooker.

Smedley had been last in line and was finished in less than twenty seconds, having given up his goods to the whore's masterly hand as she checked him for signs of funereal disease. Smedley demanded his money's worth; the whore demanded another five bucks. When Smedley started a whining irksome argument, the hooker ordered him to leave and threatened to call in her protector from the next room. Just then, Pee Wee Scomer, the 240-pound All-State body wrecker and perennial senior, stepped out of the bathroom.

Scomer, who had been first in the saddle, had been waiting for his pals to leave in order to enjoy a private, more extended ride. In answer to the whore's threat, he said in a voice just loud enough to penetrate the paper-thin walls of her flea-trap hotel room that he hoped she would call in her boyfriend as it had been at least three days since he'd torn anyone's lips off.

The boyfriend didn't show; the hooker didn't charge; Scomer got what he wanted—and so did Smedley. It was then that Smedley became aware of the peculiar power resident in the very weakness that motivated him to curry favor with the strong.

Now, he lowered the binoculars, pinched the bridge of his nose and, shifting from one rump to the other, rearranged his position on the rock. He would have preferred a closer vantage point, but just above the train trestle was as close to town as he dared go. Only Military Police and officers were permitted on the rutted streets of JakesCannon. The strictly enforced edict was accompanied by an anonymous threat of severe penalty. Unable to withstand prolonged physical discomfort, Smedley was not one to be singled out for the rigors of punitive duty. Having survived basic training and six weeks on mountain maneuvers was, he vaguely recognized, a tribute to his adept toadying.

He sucked in the bit of chocolate drool that had run down the outside of his candy bar and decided not to delay the gratification of consuming it, even though eating his last candy bar always left him faintly depressed. He hauled his knees up under his already tiring arms to steady his gaze through the binoculars and saw the schoolhouse door open.

* * * * *

Less than a mile away, where the army was bivouacked on the field at Wheeler Gap, preparations to evacuate were underway. The vast encampment was being systematically dismantled. Tents were being flattened, folded and stacked for loading onto trucks. Engineers and quartermaster personnel were everywhere toting up tent pegs, toilet paper, field phones, boxes of bandoliers, officer's cots and bedding, and countless items, which had to be accounted for in quadruplicate. Profanities rose on the clear morning air as mess men hurried lagging soldiers through the final chow line.

Most men wore 1918 Campaign hats and 1941 fatigues, which were tucked into khaki leggings still green with newness. Near the base of a rock-fall at the southeast end of the field, MPs with .45s hanging from duty belts, chivied about a detail of men with shaved heads and a white letter P stenciled on the backs of their fatigue blouses. These were camp fuck-ups who had earned the task of raking, burying and burning the stinking fly-blown mountain of garbage jettisoned by a thousand men. When the army pulled out that afternoon, they would be among the last. By then, except for felled trees, bomb-blasted craters, crushed vegetation and innumerable shit-holes, the field would appear almost as it had been.

The Corporal was one of few men without an assignment; thanks to the Captain, he was Off Duty. He glanced at his 17-jewel curved-to-fit-the-wrist Gruen Curvex and wondered what was keeping Hollywood.

Hollywood was PFC Edward Pauley, an ex-dockwalloper from California who, before receiving his Greetings from the President of the United States, had fought three four-round curtain-raisers at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. Hence the nickname. The Corporal had chosen Hollywood to be the collector for his ad hoc loan company, rightly perceiving that the ex-pug's size and strength would inspire prompt remittance.

He was in a tent at the far end of Brigade Street. This was the last area to be dismantled because it housed the company commanders and muster roll clerks, most of whom would be engaged in administrative duties right up to departure time.

Morning, Corporal, the Captain said, sticking his head through the tent flap. He had an anxious, watery-eyed look and hadn't shaved yet. Uh, that is, I ahh . . .

Won't be long now, the Corporal replied, not bothering to stand. I'll send it over soon as it gets here.

Yes. Well. That'll be fine. Thank you. The Captain let the tent flap close and backed into Hollywood who arrived at that moment with two metal trays full of steak and eggs.

How 'bout some breakfast, Cap'n? Got a real feast here.

The Captain shook his head and departed hurriedly.

Hollywood had collected breakfast from the Officer's Mess. The Warrant Officer in charge, like so many others in camp, owed the Corporal several favors.

Hollywood entered the tent and set the trays on a table beside the teletype machine. Name yer poison.

That's the right name for it.

Donut or bear claw?

Coffee.

Hollywood unhooked three canteens from his duty belt. Lessee . . . orange juice, milk . . . coffee.

Smedley burst in, excited, breathing hard. JeeZUS! he wheezed. "I SEEN her!

Did you get the Captain's medicine?

Smedley nodded.

Yes, Corporal, the Corporal instructed.

Yes, Corporal, Smedley echoed. . . . An' I SEEN her! Through the GLASSES! . . . Like I could reach out and touch her. God-all-fuckin'-mighty. She's, she's . . .

CHAPTER TWO

The little meadow was awash in sunlight. Above, like a cork on quiet water, a lone hawk made tiny adjustments of his tail feathers to float almost motionlessly on invisible thermals of crystal air. Larks and blue jays and squirrels and honeybees sang and chattered and hummed a gentle symphony of summer, taking a shy caesura when the Girl emerged from the forest, then resuming again—like they knew her. She turned completely around to be certain she was the only human present, and when she sat in the parched knee-high grass, her golden hair became a part of it, invisible to anyone who might wander by. Like the mountain cave where she sometimes hid from her half-wit brothers, and the mossy glen beside the brook, this was a special place; this was her sun place. Though no one ever came to her sun place, modesty bid her to look again before letting the dress slip from her bare shoulders . . . and breasts. She closed her eyes and, like a blossom, turned her face sunward, basking it for a full minute before opening the book Miss Thurmond had given her. Then, haltingly, phonetically forming each word, she began to read aloud:

You don't ku, kunn KNOW ay-bout me with-out you have reed read a book by thee name of . . . The Ad-ven-tures of Tom Sawyer . . . 

A quarter of a mile away, on the dirt road that wound through the forest, three soldiers walked warily, speaking in hushed tones. Smedley took a pull on his canteen, shuddered, and wheezed, Smooooth.

Gimme some, Hollywood growled, reaching for it.

I gave ya some already! Smedley protested, sequestering the canteen behind his back.

So? Gimme some MORE, fuckhead!

Stop bickering, the Corporal hissed, snatching the canteen. What've you got in here?

Just some a the corn what you been givin' the CC.

The Corporal sampled it and spat. Tastes like it leaked from the wing tank of a P-40. He turned the canteen upside-down and let the hootch bubble into the dust, eliminating it as an object of contention. He wanted no complications. Not today. He probably should have stayed in camp but, by agreeing to this sojourn, he'd thrown a bit of nourishment to two needy egos. Executive grace, he reasoned. Besides, if Smedley wasn't lying, it might provide a diverting conclusion to several weeks of ennui. He looked at his watch and said, You and Hollywood better be damn right about this, Pork.

Hey! Hollywood protested, I ain't got nothin' to do with it. The Pork's probably been floggin' his gooney again.

Twirl on it! Smedley said, just loud enough to draw a look from the Corporal.

Hollywood grinned; he'd hooked his fish. After lights-out, ol' Walter's cot gits t'shakin' like tits on a belly-dancer.

You LIE! Smedley's voice sirened. He's LYIN—

Lower your voice! The Corporal growled, pleased to see Smedley wince as though to ward off a blow. A renowned lack of physical prowess was Smedley's best defense: Beating up Smedley was no accomplishment, a fact that enabled him to talk back to men like Hollywood. Mouthing off to the Corporal, however, never crossed his mind. Not that the Corporal ever openly threatened anyone, he never did; though at times he exuded a contempt which implied a most sinister power to punish.

Honest t'God, you guys, Smedley whispered, managing to make it sound like whining. When she leaves the schoolhouse she heads for—out here somewheres. Swear to God.

Let's leave God out of this and take five, the Corporal said, leading them across the road where he plopped on a mat of rotting pine needles and leaned his back against a fallen tree. He pulled the brim of his campaign hat over his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. It was his way of hanging up a CLOSED sign.

Butt me, Pork, Hollywood said, after a minute.

Don't you ever buy nothin' of yer own?

Hollywood reached over and plucked the pack of Luckies from Smedley's pocket, put a cigarette in his mouth and one behind his ear, then flipped the pack into the middle of the road.

You piss-suckin'-shit-ass-fuck-fart! Smedley sputtered under his breath, scrambling to retrieve the pack.

The Corporal pushed his hat back from his eyes and growled, Listen up. As deprived as I am, and as much as I'd like to delight this little cupcake Walter's discovered, we gotta be back in camp by sixteen hundred. Capeesh? We don't want to be A-wall the very day we're pullin' outta hillbilly heaven.

Somethin' else we don't want, Hollywood added, looking at Smedley, is to stumble onto some good-ol'-boy's whiskey boiler and get our asses shot off.

You wait, Smedley said, still selling. You'd trade a pound a yer ass for a pinch a hers,

From the size a YOUR ass, I'd say you ain't done much pinchin', Pork.

Fag! Hollywood Faaaggot!

Good Christ, the Corporal hissed through clenched teeth. Will you morons knock it off? And don't smoke that. He read in Smedley's face an impulse to implore him to restrain Hollywood's niggling and saw it thwarted by the realization that to complain would only inspire more. These two men were precisely the disenfranchised cattle the Corporal had been taught to cut from the herd: Followers in need of someone to follow; men who, by their serving, proved the superiority of the one they served. Hollywood's right, he whispered, twisting around to gaze out over the fallen tree. These people aren't like us.

Fuckin' animals, man, Hollywood went on. They marry their kin and come out nuttier than squirrel turds.

The Corporal silenced him with a gesture, cocked his head like a robin listening for a worm, then silently bellied over the log and into the ferns. Gazing out from the forest's shadows, he had to squint against the piercing brightness of the meadow. The other two men exchanged glances then snaked over the log beside him. After thirty interminable seconds of silence, Smedley desperately wanted to speak; loathing tension of any kind, he had to bite the back of his own hand to keep