PINCKNEY BENEDICT

(1964- )

Born in Ronceverte, West Virginia, Pinckney Benedict grew up and continues to live on his family's dairy farm north of Lewis-burg, West Virginia. He graduated from Princeton University magna cum laude in 1986 with a B.A. in English, and received his MFA in 1987 from The Writers' Workshop of the University of Iowa. After an appointment to the Hill School, a prep school in Potts-town, Pennsylvania, Benedict spent two years on the Creative Writing Faculty of Oberlin College.

One of the most gifted of contemporary American writers of his generation, Pinckney Benedict writes almost exclusively of his West Virginia background. His carefully crafted stories have the air of being tales in the process of their very telling; in Benedict's most characteristic work, as in "Town Smokes," included here, protagonist and landscape are deeply bonded. Like a number of other writers in this volume, including Eudora Welty, Bobbie Ann Mason, Leslie Silko, and Louise Erdrich, Benedict raises "regional" writing to a transcendental level.

Pinckney Benedict's first short story collection, Town Smokes, was published in 1987; his second, The Wrecking Yard, in 1992.

Town Smokes

My daddy been in the ground a couple hours when it starts to rain. Hunter's up on the porch, strippen away at a chunk of soft pine wood with his Kaybar knife, and I'm setten out in the yard to get away from the sound, chip chip chip like some damn squirrel. Hunter moves in his seat as he whittles, can' sit still.

It's big drops that are comen down, and starten real quick, like you wouldn' of expected it at all. I look up when it comes on to rain, and what I see of sky's just as blue and clear. Happen like that up here sometimes, my daddy's told me, that you get your

hard rain and your blue sky, and both together like that. First time I seen it though, that I recall.

You gonna drown out there Hunter says to me, and I can just hardly hear him over the rain pounden into the dirt of the yard and spangen off the tin roof.

What's that I say. He's not more'n ten yard from me but there's rain like a sheet between us, getten in my eyes and my ears and down my collar. I like the way the cool rain feels as it soaks my shirt. I catch a couple drops in my mouth, and they got no taste to them at all. The rain washes the sweat and the dirt off me.

Drown like a turkey in the rain Hunter says. Out there and mouth open. He gets up to go inside, drops the wood and the knife down into the chair. The heavy knife sticks in the seat, blade down. Hunter moves like an old man, older than my daddy, fat and tired. He ran the sweat like a hog when we was diggen before, because the dirt was hard and packed where we put the grave, out behind the house. I thought his heart might vapor-lock on him there for a while, all red and breathen through the mouth as he was.

Hunter slips the straps of his overalls as he goes inside and I know he will spend the rest of the day in his underwear sluggen bourbon and listenen to the radio.

Get in out the rain he says to me back over his shoulder. I stay out in the yard until the door swings shut behind him. The ground is getten soft under my sneakers but I know that is just the top dirt. It hasn' rained for a good long while and the clay dirt has got dry. The rain comes down too fast and hard to soak in. I know it will not get down deep at all.

I go to the door and I can smell the piece of wood Hunter's been cutten on, the sharp pine sap. It's a tooth he's carven out, like a big boar's tusk, all smooth and curved comen out of the rough wood. He carves a lot of things like that.

He's my daddy's brother that lives with us at the camp up on Tree Mountain. He's a big man, has this small head that sits on his body like a busted chimney on a house. He don' talk much. Old Hunter'll surprise you, how good he is with whittlen. He's sold some things in town.

Water rollen off the roof runs deep around the edges of the porch. Out of the rain, my wet clothes are heavy on me. Against my leg, cold in my pocket, I feel the arrowhead I found in my daddy's

grave. Flint hunten point with the edges still sharp. It wasn' very far down, only mebbe five inches. I didn' know this's a good place to find arrowheads. I'll dig again later in other spots to look for some more. I lick my lips, want a smoke, a Camel mebbe.

You got a cigarette I say, goen into the house.

Get your fucken shoes off, bringen wet in the house Hunter says. He's standen in the front room in his shorts, and his hair stands up like he's been runnen his hands through it. The radio he keeps back in his room is on to a news station. What's a fourteen-year-old boy want with a cigarette anyway he says.

Fifteen I say. My shoes come off my feet with a wet noise. I got no socks on, and the wood floor is rough. I know to be careful in bare feet or get a sliver.

I ain' got a cigarette he says.

You got a pinch then I say. I know he's got no snuff but I ask anyway.

Hunter sits down. He's got the bottle in his hand. Christ Jesus he says. You visit whores too?

These are things a man does I say. I guess I just feel like a smoke.

I laugh but Hunter don' join in. He looks at me. When I keep my eyes on him he looks away, out the window. The hard rain throws up a spray of mist and you can' see for more than a couple yards. The roof of the camp is fairly new and tight and it don' leak at all. Hunter and my daddy put it on just the last summer before this one and they did a good job. I carried tacks and tin sheets for them, always scared of slippen and fallen off the roof.

Real gulley-washer Hunter says. They got to watch for them flash floods down to the valley. Farms goen to lose a lot of dirt to the river, this don' let up.

He keeps on looken out the window and all the time the rain is getten harder. It's finally dark out there, clouds coveren the sun. We are high up and it is strange to see it dark in the middle of day. Generally we get hard bright mountain light that makes you squint to look at it.

Your daddy used to make his own smokes Hunter says.

I say I know.

Mebbe you look through his traps, you find you the fixens he says.

That's a thought I say. I don' make any move to the room my

daddy and I share, did share. I stand and drip on the floor and listen to the rain. Hunter looks at me like watchen a snake or mebbe a dog that you ain' sure of. The rain outside the windows makes it look like it ain' any place in the world but the camp and us in it. We're alone here. I think mebbe the rain won' let up for a while yet.

Hunter says You do what you want. Always done it that way anyhow didn' you.

He stands, works his shoulders back and forth. He is sore from the diggen and would like his muscles rubbed I know. Rain throbs him some these days.

I'm gonna listen to the radio for a time he says.

I make a bet with myself he will be asleep before long.

The door to Hunter's room don' shut just right, so when he closes it I can still get the sound from the radio in his room. It is a station from in the valley. The announcer says to watch for flash floods in the narrow, high-banked creeks comen down off the mountain. He says it like it is the mountain's fault.

The tower of the radio is on top of a ridge not far from the camp. The place where they put it is a couple hunnerd feet higher than where we are and you can see it from the porch of the camp on a good day. They took out a whole big stand of blue spruce to get it in.

From where we are, the clearen looks smooth and clean and well took care of, like a yard, but I have been up there a couple time—it ain' such a hard climb as it looks, just a couple hours scramble—and it is a mess around the base of that tower. Vines and creepers around the base and grass to your knees. The blue spruce are comen back too and they are fast-growen trees.

Hunter snaps off the radio and I hear him stretch out on to his bed. He keeps moven around like he will never get to sleep.

My daddy's things is all over the room in no particular order. It is like he is still there, in all them traps, though I know that he is cold and dead and under the earth not a dozen yards away.

These things are mine now I say but it is not like they belong to me at all. Some of them should go to Hunter. I ain' sure that I want that Hunter should have them, though I would be hard put to say why not.

I move the rifle that is layen on my daddy's bed, the heavy

lever-action Marlin, and the cartridge belt that is layen there too. My fingers touch the cool blued metal of the barrel and I know I will have to clean the metal where I touched it, rub it down with a patch of oiled cloth. There is nothen that is worse for any good piece of metal than the touch of a man's hand my daddy would always be sayen.

It is two guns that are in my family, both my daddy's, his old Marlin and the single-action Colt .38 that his grandaddy used sometime way back in the Philippine Insurrection. I put the Colt down on the bed next the rifle, fish out a box of rounds for it as well. From the feel, there ain' too many cartridges left to the box, which is tore up and very old. Beside the guns and his clothes, there is not much else of his in the room.

In the top of the old chifferobe I find his little sack for tobacco. There is not much that is left in the sack, and I can bet that it is pretty old and dry. He was not much for a smoker and a sack of tobacco had a long life around him. There is a paper book of matches next the tobacco with all but two of the matches gone. It is from the Pioneer, which is a bar I have seen down to the valley. There is also a couple bills, a five and a one. I pocket the money.

I scratch through the rest of his stuff in the drawer—a dog whistle and a couple loose .410 rounds for a gun that we ain' even got; needles and thread in a sewen kit; some Vietnamese money that he used to keep around for a laugh—and come up with his old Barlow clasp knife and his Gideon's. The clasp knife I toss down with the rest of the pieces that I figure I might take with me. It clicks off the barrel of the Colt and leaves a mark on the metal. That is one mark that I won' get a hiden for.

The Gideon's is old and slippery in my hand and missen many pages. My daddy has used it for a lot of years. The paper is thin and fine for rollen your own; if you are good you can get two smokes to the page. As I say, he was not a heavy smoker and he is not even gotten up to the New Testament yet, just somewhere in Jeremiah.

I pull out the next page and crease it with my middle finger, tap tobacco onto the paper. The tobacco is crumbly with age and breaks into small pieces; it is very dark brown and cheap-looken. Some of it sticks to my skin. I lay down on the bed and put the home-rolled cigarette in my mouth. Pieces of tobacco stick to my tongue. I spit out, light the smoke.

Christ I say. The cigarette don' taste good at all, like the tobacco has rotted. I flick it out onto the floor and sparks fly off from the lit end. They stick to the wood floor and smolder there, and one by one the sparks burn themselves out.

I figure I will go into town for a time I say to Hunter's back.

He is face down on the narrow cot in his room and I figure him for asleep. The bottle is by the bed and it is several fingers down from where it was earlier. Hunter's back is pale and wide, and there is a mole I never took notice of before in the deep track that his backbone makes.

He says Goen where? and rolls over so sudden it startles me. His face is wet with tears and it surprises me that this old man has been cryen. For a minute I can' remember why. The bed sags under him.

Down the mountain I say. Get me some smokes mebbe.

He is wipen at his face with his arm, drunk and embarrassed that I seen him cry. You can cry for your brother I want to say.

You ain' comen back are you Hunter says.

He puts a foot on the floor and the bottle goes over. I pick it up for him, set it back where it was. It is all but empty with haven been dumped out. The floor is damp and the room smells of bourbon. I look out the little window in Hunter's bedroom and the rain has slacked off some. That is a help.

The rifle's in on the bed I say. He would of wanted for you to have it.

I walk out into the front room and Hunter comes after me, walken in his underwear and bare feet. I got the .38 and the clasp knife and all in my kit with me, ready to go.

Why is it that you're goen now Hunter says. With the rain and all. It's a bad day to be goen down to the valley.

I think about that. It is not somethen I have thought about much before this. I look at him.

Because I am tired I say. Tired of the mountain and smoken shitty tobacco. Mebbe I just want to smoke a real cigarette for a change.

Want you some town smokes I guess Hunter says.

I say I guess.

Mebbe want to kiss all them pretty girls down to the valley too Hunter says. I don' say anythen.

Yeah he says. Bring me back a bottle when you come.

I'll do that I say. You bet.

I go outside and the air is cool for a day in the middle of summer. The rain has turned the dust to mud, and water runs in streams in the yard, has bit into the dirt. A hard rain for just a couple hours I know can raise the creeks and cut right through the banks and dirt levels down below. I wonder what they are doen with all the water down in the town. The air feels damp but the rain is mostly stopped.

Hunter has followed me out into the yard and his feet are all over mud. How you goen down? he says.

Railroad right of way I say. It's the quickest way.

Hunter follows me the next couple of steps and I cut from the yard into the underbrush so he will stop followen. The leaves on the bushes are wet and soak my shirt, my kit. I know the damp will be hard on the gun.

Ought not to of happened to your daddy that way Hunter says. He is looken in the bushes like he can' see where I am at, but he wants me to hear him.

When the tree falls I say best the man that cut it should be out the way.

That is hard Hunter says to the bushes. That a boy should say that about his daddy that brought him up and fed him.

I know that Hunter will see me if I keep on talken. I don' want that he should see me. I turn and go, headen toward the right of way down the mountain.

We should of had someone to say the words Hunter calls after me. It ain' right that there wasn' nobody to say the words for him.

I keep goen through the brush. I guess I would of said the words if I knew them. I ain' got the least idee what words he would of wanted though.

The last time I seen my daddy he tells me a story. He has the old two-stroke loggen saw over his shoulder and is headed out to where he known there's some trees that has come down, or are ready to come down anyhow. You want some help daddy I ask and he says no.

Then he looks over at where Hunter is sitten on the porch and this time Hunter is carven a great horned owl out of a big piece of oak that would have gone well in the fire in the winter.

Hunter wasn' always so fat and lazy he says loud enough that he knows Hunter can hear him. Hunter don' stir from his carven, usen a chisel instead of the Kaybar knife. That's how he works on the ones he figures to sell.

Nawsir my daddy says, was a time when he and I used to run and raise some hell in these parts. When we was about your age. I member one time down to Seldomridge's place, little shorthorn farm next the river. You recall that Hunter?

Hunter keeps quiet, just gouges a long chunk of wood out the owl's back. It kind of ruins how the owl looks I think.

The river was froze over, couple three feet thick out near the banks my daddy says. Ice got all thin and black out toward the middle though where the water's deep and fast.

He shifts the chain saw from one shoulder to the other and I see where a little gas mixed with oil has leaked onto his shirt. He don' seem to mind.

So Hunter here riles up Seldomridge's cattle and about a dozen shorthorns go plowen out onto the ice my daddy says.

My daddy's starten to laugh and there are these tears formen in the corners of his eyes. I can hardly stand to look at him because he thinks the story is so funny and I don' get it at all yet.

And they're shiveren out there my daddy keeps on. Can hardly stand, all spraddle-legged and tryen to stay up on the ice, blowen and snorten, scared and full of snot and droolen, them whiteface. Hunter's yellen and holleren at them from the bank, just to keep them on the move, keep them up and off from the shore. Hunter's voice sounds loud out there with everthen else so quiet and covered in snow.

Then the first one goes through my daddy says and he can hardly keep the saw on his shoulders for laughen.

It sounds like a pistol shot when the ice gives and the steer disappears down and it's just black black water shooten up through the hole in the ice like a geyser. That sets them off, stompen and bellowen and the next goes through the ice, skitteren and scrabblen, and the next after that one. Prob'ly half a dozen, one after the other, they get out on the thin ice in the middle and don' have time to look surprised 'fore they go down.

And you was laughen Hunter says from behind his carven.

You damn right I was too my daddy says. I was laughen like a son of a bitch he says and he wheels and heads off into the woods

after the tree that fell on him. As he goes, me and Hunter can hear him in the woods there, laughen and laughen about the whiteface that went through the ice in the middle of the river.

Them cattle showed up as far down the river as Teaberry Hunter says after my daddy is gone.

Drownded I ask.

Dead as hammers he says. You bet.

About halfway down the mountain a pig runs across the right of way just a couple feet in front of me. Scares the bejesus out of me, cutten out of the brush on one side and nearly steps on me goen past. It gets stuck for a second goen across the rails and I see that it is young, just a little spotted sucklen and haven a hard time of it. It is whinen a little as it gets over the belly-high steel rails, tail twitchen like a dog's. When it gets over the far rail it turns toward me a second and its eyes are rolled way back in its head. Then it gets into the brush on the other side of the right of way and it's gone.

Two boys come out of the brush after it and they are right on top of me too. Christ one of them says and shoves at me. He is not very big and I knock him down with my kit. The other is big and red-haired and carryen a rifle. He rushes across the right of way and stares into the brush. Goddam it to hell he says.

He raises the rifle, pointen into the brush after the sucklen, and I think for a minute that he is goen to let go. Then I realize the pig must be in under cover now and he'd be a fool to shoot. Still his finger curves on the trigger a second, tugs and almost fires.

It is a short-barrelled Winchester carbine that he is carryen with a shrouded front sight for brush-beaten. The stock is wrapped around with black electric tape and there is rust all on the receiver. They are rough-looken boys. The big one is about my age and the little one some younger I figure.

The big red-headed one turns around to me and his eyes are cold. I figure he is mad because they lost the pig that they had been tracken. He drops the hammer back into half-cock, holds the rifle easy in the crook of his arm. His clothes are dirty and too small on his big frame.

Le's get a move on Okie the little one says. His teeth are gone rotten on him and make him talk odd, real soft like his mouth pains him. He says mebbe we can still get us that 'ere pig.

You hush Darius the big one says and he is still looken at me. It makes me nervous and I turn to head on down the cinder roadbed. The cinders are soft with the rain. They stick to the bottoms of my shoes, make my feet feel heavy. It is hard to walk on the railroad ties though, because they are too close together to make for an easy stride.

When I look back the big one, Okie, is still staren at me from under the long red hair. He licks his lips.

Hold up there a minute he says.

The little one trots after me a couple steps and I see there is somethen wrong with his legs, how they are too short for the rest of his body is what makes him so small. He is mebbe not so young as I first thought, mebbe older than me or Okie too. The ties are just right for him and he moves from one to the next without any trouble at all. Okie stays where he is.

We lost that ere shoat Darius says and he sounds like on the edge of cryen about it. You seen it he says.

Darius is right up on me now where I can smell him and I stop.

You boys want to let me alone I say. I ain' botheren you none.

Who says you was Okie calls out.

He's got the rifle pointen up at the gray sky now, held in both hands. He spits on the cinders, got a pinch of snuff in the right side of his mouth. He comes down the track a way, smilen, and I see his teeth are gone bad on him too. The snuff'll do that to you in time.

What you got Darius is sayen and I catch him looken at my kit. He's got his hands out like a kid asken for a candy. I drop the bag, push it back behind me. Darius is hoppen back and forth from one railroad tie to the other. He's got mud to the knee on his old corduroy pants, but it seems like he don' want to touch foot down on the roadbed.

He don' want you messen with his stuff Okie says to Darius. It is like a man talken to a kid.

He looks at me. You headen down into town he says. You live up on the mountain? He points back up the way I came with the carbine.

Yeah I say.

He looks at Darius and snorts, spits again. Goddam ridge runner he says. Come down from up on top and don' know nothen. Darius laughs.

What you want to go into town for, ridge runner? Okie says. He pokes the rifle barrel into my chest real sudden. It clunks against my ribs and hurts like a son of a bitch. I can hear Darius goen in my kit but I don' look.

Ain' nothen for you in town, boy Okie says. Best you go on back up the mountain and stay with the rest of the runners.

Just take the whole fucken thing Darius he says, ain' no use to go rooten through there. It don' stop Darius. Okie turns back to me.

You turn out your pockets he says and he taps me with the rifle again. We could do you he says. Kill you just as easy as killen that shoat and nobody to know any differ'nt about it. Who'd care what happens to a ridge runner like you anyhow.

I know I say. We're about fifteen hunnerd feet above the valley and I figure he is right.

You turn out your pockets and keep your mouth shut and you be all right Okie says. Darius is goen through my stuff still and I can hear the Colt clink against somethen. I hate to think of these two with it but there is nothen to do about it. I wish I had left the thing with Hunter.

My daddy's dead I say. I don' know why I say it.

Looky here Darius says and holds up the Barlow knife. He has got it open and the blade looks shiny even under the cloudy sky. He tests it against his hairy forearm. Sharp he says. Okie holds the rifle on me but he is looken off somewheres else, after where the pig went. I dig in after the money I got in my pockets.

Tree fell on him I say. When he was cutten it down.

Okie takes the six dollars from me, shoves it in his pants. I think about what a 30-30 could do to you this close up. I seen one take the whole hind end off a groundhog one time at about two hunnerd yards, just tore it off and threw the 'hog about ten feet. I hold out the arrowhead to him, turn out my pockets so's he can . see they ain' nothen in them. He takes he arrowhead, holds it out from him with his left hand, squinten. He knows I ain' goen to give him any trouble.

Leave me some to get a pack of smokes down to the valley I say. And a bottle for my uncle.

Shoot Okie says. He tosses the arrowhead back over his shoulder. It hits the smooth steel rail and gives out a pretty sound, like

a note on my daddy's old jew harp. The flint busts into about twenty pieces.

That was a pretty old arrowhead I say. I don' know how old it was but I want to say somethen.

Gimme his shoes Darius says.

He's standen and looken at my feet. His shoes look like bags tied with string or somethen. Mine ain' much but they are better than that, an old pair of sneakers that was my daddy's.

His shoes ain' about to fit you, clubfoot Okie says. Darius is bouncen up and down, still standen on a railroad tie. He's got my kit in his hand. He just looks at Okie and sticks his lip out. He is retarded some I see.

Get out your shoes Okie says. He seems like he is tired of the whole thing now. Just go on and get on out of them he says. He ain' even holden the rifle on me now.

I take my shoes off and hand them to Darius. He don' even try to put them on. He just stuffs them in the kit and laughs, sound like a dog barken. The roadbed is cold with the rain and the cinders stick to the soles of my feet, stain them black.

Darius goes to the edge of the right of way, looks off into the brush. Le's see can we get that pig now Okie he says. He goes off into the brush carryen my kit with him. After a minute I can' see him anymore, just hear him crashen around in there.

Okie looks me up and down and his eyes are still hard. The smell of him that close up is greasy, like somethen fat cooked on an open fire.

You go back on up he says. That's best for ridge runners, the top of the mountain.

I'm headed into town I say.

He looks mad at me and I think for a minute he may shoot me, but he don' even bring the gun around to bear. He looks at me some more, then heads on into the brush after Darius.

I wait a minute to see if they're comen back but they're both gone. No use tryen to follow them into the brush with no shoes. I start down the right of way again, on into the valley. The walken is easier without my kit. The rain has started up again, lighter this time. It don' feel like the kind of a rain that goes on for too long.

The cinders make my feet sore and black. I walk that way for a while, then change to walken on the ties. It is strange the small

steps you have to take, but easier than stretchen to skip a tie every time. I get used to it.

When we find my daddy he's been dead for quite a while. The tree just caught him across the chest with one thick branch. He must of been on his way to dodge the fall when it caught him. His face looks surprised; his body don' look like anythen I ever seen before, all a different shape from what it was, crushed ribs and tore cloth, somethen terrible to look at. Hunter covers him with a good thick tarpaulin right after we jack the tree up off of him and I don' have a chance to look at him after that. We bury the tarpaulin along with him.

The loggen saw's down on the ground next to him. It didn' get caught by the tree at all, looks just like it had when he walked out with it. All the gas in it ain' gone so it must of stalled after he got hit. Hunter and me talk about it but can never figure what it was about that old oak that made it fall the wrong way or why my daddy didn' figure how it was goen to come down. He must of made the cut wrong somehow and just not seen his mistake until it was too late.

Lot of folks lost everthen says the man who owns the drugstore. He is a heavy man wearen a white apron tied behind his back. Houses, stock, barns, the whole kitten caboodle down the river and on into Monroe County. He is talken to a skinny man in overalls who nods.

You betcha the drugstore man says. We awful lucky to be this high up. He is sweepen at a puddle of water near the door of his store, pushen the water out into the street. He wears glasses and the glass flashes as he moves his head in time with the broom. The bristles of the broom have soaked up a lot of the dirty water and he works like they are heavy.

The town is quiet, like it's a Sunday, and the streets are wet from the rain. When I walk in the store the men look at me. They see I got no shoes on.

Sucked the pilens right out from under the bridge the drugstore man says. Craziest thing you ever saw. Help you he says to me. I got no money so I don' say anythen back.

The Dodge dealership down to the river the skinny man says. You know, Sims'. Say the cars was floaten up near around the

ceilen. Water came in so fast nobody had time to move nothen. Earth dam couple miles up let go and that was all she wrote.

Don' I know the drugstore man says. He sweeps some water past my feet, looks at me again. You need somethen he says.

I was looken for some smokes I say. Cigarettes.

We got them the drugstore man says. All kinds. What was you looken for?

Camels I say.

It's a bunch of miles down the mountain and I feel tired, sick. I want to sit down and have a smoke. I wish I had some money. My feet hurt.

Yo Carl the drugstore man says. You want to go in there back of the counter and get a pack of Camels for me.

Sure the skinny man says. He gets the cigarettes and tosses them to me. I catch them against my chest and the pack crushes a little.

I got no money I say.

The drugstore man stops sweepen a minute. Some of the water he just got out the door trickles back in. It's dirty river water, brown on the white floor.

Day like today I guess that's all right he says. He grins at me and I know how dirty I am. I know how I look. He figures I got wiped out by the flood.

My daddy's dead I say.

The drugstore owner shakes his head.

What a day Carl says behind the counter. He shakes his head too, snags himself a pack of smokes. What a day. I don' tell them that my daddy was dead before the rain even started.

That's hard son the drugstore man says. Awful goddam hard.

You got to wonder what the Lord is up to the skinny man says. Leave a boy 'thout a father.

I figure that is the nicest thing I ever heard. All I want to do right then is sit down and cry. I tear the wrap off the pack of cigarettes and the drugstore man hands me his lighter, a plastic Cricket. Coleman's Since 1942 it says on the side, the name of his drugstore. I turn the striken wheel with my thumb and the lighter catches, sends up a good strong flame the very first time.

I suck in the smoke and the third cigarette tastes just as good as the first. There is nothen like a butt that somebody else has rolled

in a machine for you and that don' leave pieces of tobacco on your tongue.

I sit out near the end of the bridge that must of used to connected the two parts of the town across the river. It was an old steel bridge that sat up on stone pilens, and the drugstore man was right: the supports are clean gone and the span is down by the middle in the dark rushen river. Right near where I sit there's a sign that says Weight Limit 2 Tons.

I pull on the cigarette until it burns down near my fingers. I seen men that smoked so much they built up yellow callus on their thumb and pointer finger, could burn a smoke all the way down if they wanted to and never feel it at all. I can' do that and besides I got a whole pack yet to go. No use to be hard on myself. I flick the butt into the river and it is gone in the fast water almost even before I see it hit.

I have heard that in floods you will sometimes see animals and trees that got caught in the water goen downstream. I have not seen any by this time and figure they must all of been pushed down the river right at first when the water was highest. There probably won' be any again until the next time the river rises.

It is starten the hard rain again, not just the soft drizzle now, and I have to shield the fourth cigarette against the water to get it to light. The lighter catches the first try. I figure the cigarette will burn pretty well in the rain once I manage to start it goen. I am wet again but this time it is not so pleasant as it was this mornen. This time it is just cold and nasty. I ain' sure what I will do. It is sure as hell I won' go back up the mountain.

After a while I may go up the river and look for the earth dam that let go and did all the damage. It must look pretty awful, busted open in the middle and oozen the river water over the lip of the hole, brown and thick with bottom mud. Not like the creeks up on the mountain but a real river and comen through just the way it wants with nothen to hold it back. Yessir, that would sure be

somethen to see.