The Marble Orchard Read Free Page A

said, a bit breathless from the whisky. “There’s a lot of Sheetmires around and it’s hard to keep track of all the different bunches. I don’t even mess with keeping up no more. Now, it used to be a lot of the older folks was good at that kind of thing. Kept it all written down in the front of their Bibles. Didn’t just write it down, though. They studied on it. Got it down like an oath they had to say. My Uncle Esker could talk the name of ever half-aunt and cousin on back to when they first left England. Shit. Ought to heard him talk in the night by the fire. It was like hearing the roll get called up yonder. I never could do that. Course I never tried awful hard. Just couldn’t see the point, I guess. All those folks were dead and gone long before I ever come to be.”
    “There was a spot where even the old folks lost track though, wasn’t there?” said the smaller man.
    “There was. Even Uncle Esker couldn’t recollect much past two hundred years. That’s nothing. A drop is all. And I’m not sure I’d want to go on past that even if I could.”
    “I might,” said the other man. “I might like to know past what them old folks knew and could tell.”
    “Well, I don’t see any kind of good it’d do you or them.”
    The smaller man rested his chin against his chest and watched the fire. “Well, maybe not,” he said. “I still might like to know it anyway.”
    Beam squatted in the dirt. His head felt warped from the liquor Alton had given him and now he felt a bit dizzy from sleep. He didn’t want to hear the talk of family names or bloodlines, and his guts churned a bit from the memory of all the families at the potluck gawking at him in mute surprise as if he were a guest unexpected and unwelcome.
    He sat on his haunches and listened to the men talk of things distant and long forgotten. They seemed to speak with the pulse and rhythm of his own blood as it wandered lost and vagrant inside him and he recalled the faces of the Sheetmires at the potluck again, and heard the dogs hunting in the far wilds beyond the fire. He could see it: the long slick hounds flaming in the pines as they sought the red fox, the great billows of their lungs roaring, their hearts booming like the drum of the wind as it beat against the trees. He could see it all. The drop of paws in the dirt. The fox’s burnished eyes like fine tumble-shined stones flared with cold light. He could see it, and a rush of air surrounded him so that he felt he sat in the doorway of a tomb, the gust swifting in from the trees to chill him until he shivered and clutched at his knees.
    “Get up closer to the fire here,” said the large man.
    Beam scooted forward and the heat grazed his arms.
    “Said you fell asleep?”
    Beam nodded. “I guess I did.”
    “How you plan on getting home?”
    Beam picked at the dirt between his sneakers. He hadn’t considered this and now it dawned on him the way Alton had abandoned him in the cemetery. “I don’t know,” he said, finally. “Walk I guess.”
    “That’d be quite a hike.”
    Beam picked a chunk of bark from the ground and tossed it into the fire. “Maybe y’all could give me a ride.”
    The larger man stuffed his hands into the pockets of his hunting jacket. “I guess we might could,” he said, turning to the smaller man. “Let’s run this boy home and by the time we get back maybe the dogs will have come in.”
    The other man bobbed his head in agreement. “That sounds good,” he said. He stood up from his bucket, holding his rifle in the crook of his arm. He smiled at Beam. “Truck’s down this way,” he said, and then moved out through the cemetery.
    The larger man stood up and hoisted his rifle over his shoulder. “Come on. It ain’t no trouble for us to give you a ride.”
    Beam stood and dusted himself off and then hitched at his jeans. The large man looked him up and down.
    “This old boney ground here don’t make much of a bed, does it?” he said.
    Beam shook his