The Orchard Keeper (1965) Read Online Free PDF

much traffic and what they is folks won’t hardly pick you up even …
    Ah, Sylder thought, shouldn’t have thrown that shift. He could see the knee out of the corner of his eye, cocked back on the seat, the man sitting half sidewise watching him.
    —My mother been real bad sick too, she …
    Sylder’s hand moved in stealth from wheel to shiftlever, poised birdlike. The hand on the speedometer climbed with the hum of the motor.
    —doctor’s bills is higher’n …
    His left foot dropped the clutch. Now. Under hiscupped palm the gearshift shot down viciously, quivered where a moment before the man’s knee had been.
    —so I shore do preciate it … The man went on, droning, his legs now crossed with an air of homey comfort, slightly rocking.
    Sylder hung his elbow over the doorsill and leaned his ear to the rush of wind, the pockety rhythm of the open exhaust and the black road slishing oily under the wheels, trying to lose the voice.
    No cars passed. He drove in almost a trance, the unending and inescapable voice sucking him into some kind of oblivion, some faltering of the senses preparatory to … what? He sat up a little. The man had not taken his eyes from him, and yet never looked directly at him.
    You bastard, Sylder thought. It began to seem to him that he had driven clear to Atlanta for the sole purpose of picking up this man and driving him back to Maryville. His back hurt. I must be crazy, he said to himself, reaching in his pockets for cigarettes. This son of a bitch will have me crazy anyway. He jiggled one from the pack, spun it leisurely between thumb and forefinger to his lips. He had the pack in his other hand then riding the top of the steering wheel. I’ll bet I don’t make it, he wagered, don’t reach it. His right hand having delivered the cigarette to his mouth was creeping slowly for the pack to put it away. It was halfway up the steering wheel when the voice, suddenly clear, hopeful, said:
    Say, wonder could I get one of them from ye … (leaning forward, already reaching) … I run out a while back and ain’t …
    Sylder chuckled and straight-armed the pack at him. Sure, he said. Help yourself. He waited a few seconds,listening to the paper rustle, the man getting the cigarette. He could feel him hesitate, the eyes turn on him. Then the package came back.
    Thanks, old buddy, the man said.
    Sylder waited. The man didn’t say anything more. Waiting too. Sylder produced the matches with painful deliberation. Catching up his knee to the underside of the wheel he steered that way and with studied slowness fumbled a match from the box and struck it. Shielding the flame with his hands he lit the cigarette, then dropped the dying match over his elbow into the slipstream boring past the open windwing and took the wheel once more, exhaling luxuriously and repocketing the matches. He waited.
    Say, old buddy, I wonder if I could get a … why thanks, thank ye.
    The match scratched and popped. Sylder meditated in the windshield the face of the man cast in orange and black above the spurt of flame like the downlidded face of some copper ikon, a mask, not ambiguous or inscrutable but merely discountenanced of meaning, expression. In the flickery second in which Sylder’s glance went to the road and back the man’s eyes raised to regard him in the glass, so that when Sylder looked back they faced each other over the cup of light like enemy chieftains across a council fire for just that instant before the man’s lips pursed, carplike, still holding the cigarette, and sucked away the flame.
    They smoked, the heat of the night air moving over them heavy as syrup. In the dark glass where the road poured down their cigarettes rose and fell like distant semaphores above the soft green dawn of the dashlights.
    He stopped at Gainesville for gas which he didn’t need and went into the men’s room taking the keyswith him. The man sat in the car. Inside, Sylder lit a cigarette, smoked it in long pulls and flipped