The World Made Straight

The World Made Straight Read Online Free PDF

Book: The World Made Straight Read Online Free PDF
Author: Ron Rash
he’d be able to catch out of Caney Creek before they were all gone. He wondered if after he did he’d be able to find another way-back trickle of water that held them. He tried to imagine that stream, imagine he was there right now fishing it.
    He must have passed out again, because when he opened his eyes the sun hovered just above the tree line. The humming in his head was gone and when he tested the leg, pain flamed up every bit as fierce as before. He wondered how long it would be until his parents got worried and how long it would take after that before someone found his truck and folks began searching. Tomorrow at the earliest, he figured, and even then they’d search the river before looking anywhere else.
    Travis lifted his head a few inches and shouted toward the woods. No one called back. Being so close to the ground muffled his voice, so he used a forearm to raise himself a little higher and shout again.
    I’m going to have to sit up, he told himself, and just the thought of doing so made bile rise into his throat. He took deliberate breaths and used both arms to lift himself. Pain smashed against his body and the world drained of color until all of what surrounded him was shaded a deep blue. He leaned back on the ground, sweat popping out on his face and armslike blisters. Everything was moving farther away, the sky and trees and plants, as though he were being slowly lowered into a well. He shivered and wondered why he hadn’t brought a sweatshirt or jacket with him.
    Two men came out of the woods, and seeing them somehow cleared his head for a few moments, brought the world’s color and proximity back. They walked toward him with no more hurry than men come to check their plants for cutworms. Travis knew the big man in front was Carlton Toomey and the man trailing him his son. He couldn’t remember the son’s name but had seen him in town. What he remembered was the son had been away from the county for nearly a decade, and some said he’d been in the Marines and others said prison and some said both, though you wouldn’t know it from his long brown hair, the bright bead necklace around his neck. The younger man wore a dirty white tee-shirt and jeans, the older man blue coveralls with no shirt underneath. Grease coated their hands and arms.
    They stood above him but did not speak or look at him. Carlton Toomey jerked a red rag from his back pocket and rubbed his hands and wrists. The son stared at the woods across the creek. Travis wondered if they weren’t there at all, were just some imagining in his head.
    â€œMy leg’s hurt,” Travis said, figuring if they spoke back they must be real.
    â€œI reckon it is,” Carlton Toomey said, looking at him now. “I reckon it’s near about cut clear off.”
    The younger man spoke.
    â€œWhat we going to do?”
    Carlton Toomey did not answer, instead eased himself onto the ground beside the boy. They were almost eye level now.
    â€œWho’s your people?”
    â€œMy daddy’s Harvey Shelton.”
    â€œYou ain’t much more than ass and elbows, boy. I’d have thought what Harvey Shelton sired to be stouter. You must favor your mother.” Carlton Toomey nodded his head and smiled. “Me and your daddy used to drink some together, but that was back when he was sowing his wild oats. He still farming tobacco?”
    â€œYes sir.”
    â€œThe best days of tobacco men is behind them. I planted my share of burley, made decent money for a while. But that tit has done gone dry. How much your daddy make last year, six—seven thousand?”
    Travis tried to remember, but the numbers would not line up in his head. His brain seemed tangled in cobwebs.
    â€œHe’d make as much sitting on his ass and collecting welfare. If you’re going to make a go of it in these mountains today you got to find another way.”
    Carlton Toomey stuffed the rag in his back
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