a leather cover just like the one on his bedside table, the one he hadn’t opened in years, the one that once belonged to his mother. “I already have one of these.” He held it out to Dickson.
“Have another.” Dickson turned to look up at all the fan belts hanging from the ceiling. “Can you tell me the number on that long one?”
Will slipped the Bible back in the locker and read the number. Then he headed out.
“See you in an hour or so,” Dickson yelled.
Will didn’t reply. Out in the lot, he wove between the big rigs, their engines idling, the drivers still asleep. At the incinerator, the air reeked of rotted eggs. Will held his breath and jogged past. Someone had dumped trash along the curb where he’d swept, which made him curse Dickson again. Will didn’t want to tear his uniform, so he squeezed through the hole in the chain link fence, slow and easy.
On the other side, he paused. Already he’d scuffed his new black leather shoes, the only part of his uniform he had to buy. Yesterday, those shoes had become little Dutch ovens, the sun burning the tops, the asphalt a bed of coals underneath. He expected the same for today.
Far across the wide valley the sun crested South Mountain. A shaft of light pierced the clouds, and the whole sky glowed, a rich wash of purples and pinks. In the night, the wind had shifted, and he was sure it would rain in a day or two.
Down on the plaza, two Esso men filled a tractor-trailer, and behind HoJo’s, two slender women slammed their car doors and hurried to the kitchen. He looked at his watch; it read 7:05. “Somebody’s late for work,” he said and wondered who. Then he turned to face the mountain.
The scrub growth stood thick at first, where the land was timbered to build the pike. Will scouted a path along a rivulet. Bending like a deer, he plunged through. The air smelled musky and wild, and somewhere ahead, a deer snorted. Soon, the path opened to mature oaks and hickories. Will straightened and stretched his back. The plaza had disappeared, but the sound of traffic stayed close. Can’t get lost with that noise. He pushed up the slope.
Yesterday, from the station, he had plotted landmarks, mapped a route. The ravens kept flying to a cliff at the edge of a hollow. Now up close, the hollow looked twice as large, the rock face not yet visible.
Will hummed Little Jimmy Dickens’s “I’m a Plain Old Country Boy.” Even though he didn’t go to church, he had plowed behind a mule just like Little Jimmy. And like the singer, Will could play the guitar. At first, he’d taught himself by listening to the radio, picking out the melody. Then for his thirteenth birthday, Aunt Amanda had given him a few lessons with Bill Freeman. Will learned enough about chords to work through Hank’s tunes, and Little Jimmy’s, too.
About the same time, Will signed up for the junior high band because Betty Lee wanted to play the flute. That was her first and last name, but everyone called her that like it was one word—BettyLee. He sang those three syllables, over and over. Mr. Fogle, the band director, handed him a saxophone, said that’s what the band needed, so that’s what Will got to play. He hated it at first, the squeaks and sore lips. But Betty Lee loved it, and eventually that beat-up, scratched piece of metal yielded a melody. When his father hit his own steady snoring song, Will listened to big bands on the late-night radio, working through the fingerings, memorizing the solos.
Before his father died, Will used to like pissing him off with those squawks. “Go play that goddamn thing out in the barn,” he’d yell. So Will did, forcing their horses, Mac and Bob, to listen to scales and stupid marches. Later, in high school, Will went to the barn to play because he didn’t want Aunt Amanda to hear. He’d hole up in the empty grain bin with its tight walls; it held in the most warmth and his long, rambling riffs. He could follow a melody and get lost. He found a kind of peace in that music.
The hollow forked, and Will stayed with the north branch, the stream getting narrower, the slope steeper. His feet slipped as he zigzagged up the mountain through a thicket of rhododendron, what his father called “laurel hells.” Just visible beyond was the cliff. He glanced at his watch and kept moving.
The cliff face was brittle and loose, shale mostly. He skirted the bottom edge, searching for the nest. Because of the mountain’s steepness, he steadied himself against trees, moving from one to the next, the ground more rock than dirt, stone piled on stone.
The sun heated the air, and he saw no snakes. Will broke some spicebush to wave away the gnats, the twig smelling tangy and sweet. For a moment, he rested against a boulder to look at the turnpike far below. The cars and trucks had become miniatures, the people tiny as toy soldiers. He wished for his water jug and hoped no one spotted him, especially Dickson.
He was closer now. Will recognized one ledge that jutted out from the cliff. And there was a raven watching from an oak. “I’m just coming to look,” Will said aloud. “Don’t mean no harm.” The raven flew away.
Will glanced at his watch again. Forty minutes left, and most of that he would need to climb back down. “Come on. Where are you?” He scanned the cliff, picking out any ledge large enough to hold a nest—all of them empty.
A barred owl suddenly cut through the air to land in a hickory. It didn’t see Will, its eyes focused on the cliff. Will waited. Within a second, two ravens flew through the trees, squawking louder than Will had ever heard. One dove at the owl. The owl swiveled and looked once more at the cliff. Then it opened its wings, launched from the branch, and glided through the forest and disappeared. One raven followed for a while before wheeling above the trees. The other raven flew to the cliff, and at last, Will saw. Halfway up, a stunted cherry tree grew from the rock face, and at its base, a pile of sticks rested on its roots. The raven perched on the edge of the nest and murmured a soft call. Will heard the reply of two or three nestlings, and he could barely contain a shout. “Hot diggity!” he whispered. The other raven had flown to a tree directly above him, and the adult on the nest turned away from the young to look down at Will.
“All right, all right,” Will said. “I’m leaving . . . but I’ll be back, don’t you worry.” He turned to slide down the mountain.
Scoop spotted Will first as he loped around a tractor-trailer. “Where have you been?” He took in Will’s shoes, the dirt on his knees, the cuts on his forearms. A briar had sliced Will’s cheek, so he held a handkerchief to his face. “You look like you fought a bear.”
Will looked down at his clothes, wondered where Dickson was. He kept facing Scoop. “You have any safety pins around?”
“I think you need a little more than that,” Scoop said. He lifted his cap, wiped back his hair. “There might be some back in the back. What you need them for?”
Will pointed to his butt. “I ripped my pants.”
“Good God, boy, this is your second day at work and you already ripped your new pants. I’ve worked here twenty years and haven’t done that. Let me see.”
Will turned and Scoop burst out laughing.
Dino, at the far island waiting on two cars, hollered, “What’s so funny?”
Scoop couldn’t stop laughing, so he waved for Dino to come over.
“Come on, Scoop,” Will said. “This ain’t funny.”
“No, it sure ain’t. You know Dickson’s fixing to come out here any minute.” Scoop busted out laughing again.
“What’s going on here?”
