The Boy strutted up to him, grabbed his pants leg. Ring put
the Boy on his knee. "Won't even let you have a piece." .The
cock talked deep in his chest, snugggled closer. Ring kept
stroking him.
The investigator came out in a coupe. A girl with slim,
silked legs like cuesticks, a chalked face. Stuck her nose into
everything, even into the backhouse to see how they were
eating. She spotted Orphan Boy in the yard tackling a heel
of old bread. She said, "People that want relief oughtn't be
wasting bread on a rooster."
Her visit brought no answer from the relief office.
The old woman nagged until Ring went down to the
courthouse alone. The man in charge sat behind a desk with
a blotter green as a pool table. "We've got to be careful
with the taxpayers'
money. We've got to see those that really
need relief get it. Would it be fair to give relief if you
didn't need it and take it away from the real needy?" His
eyes tightened as if he were tak.ing a shot. "There's people
like the Tetleys been living on grits. There's others." He
smiled. "That
Orphan Boy is a real fighter, a gambling
rooster."
Ring shifted his legs. "He ain't fought now a long time."
"Sell him or cook him. Then we would know."
Ring's fist was full of sweat. He walked out, wiping his
hand. He shuffled 'down to the shop.
Tarr was honing a razor. He looked up. "How's the
Boy?"
Ring told him about the relief man.
Tarr's spit burst like shot out of his mout~. "Gambling
rooster; they won't say that to Owens. No. But a poor
man, he oughtn't have nothing."
Tarr spat on the stone.
Ring 'watched him a long time. When he got up to go,
Bruce .Jenkins came in. Bruce heard the story and cursed
a blue streak. He told about a new mill and houses going
up the other side of, the mountains.
Might get work there.
Ring decided to go. But he couldn't bear to tear himself
from Orphan Boy. The Boy wasn't acting just right. He
stood for a long time looking down a't him. He gave Ella
101lgcareful orders how to take care of him.
He was gone a month. The car broke down in the moun-
tains. He had to hike back. He returned with a sack of
flour, slab of bacon, a hen and corn for the cock.
He had hardly set foot in the yard when the old woman
flew at him like a knife. He would have found skeletons
home if not for a bag of food from the church. The relief
hadn't even peeped to them, all because of that hell fowl.
Ring hurried to the pen. Orphan Boy was lumped up in
the corner, feathers matted, bill cheesy-looking. Ring cleaned
and watered him. Bl.lt he picked only halfheartedly at the
squatting hen Ring held for him.
Ring spent the whole day with him. He let him range
far and wide, gave him corn from the palm of his hand. He
kept him away from the hen. Orphan Boy had always been
too much of a colonel with his hens, scratching for them,
giving them all he had.
Ella sat up in bed patiently waiting for Ring. He came in
worried. He woke at dawn and listened. Always at dawn
the cock's song was fresh and sweet as dew. He heard no
PARTISAN
REVIEW AND ANVIL
song or call out of the Boy. He hurried'
from bed, bare-
footed, fixing his pants. He looked in the trees. Ran out
into the road, calling and whistling. Found him on a sand-
hill with his wings spread as if a hen had slipped from under
him the last moment.
Ring held the old Boy to his chest. The head hung limp,
wet with dew. A spider had woven a web round his spurs.
Ring thumbed the spurs clean. He sat in the yard holding
the cock while the sun climbed.
He got up with the stirring in the house, put on his yellow
shoes. He laid Orphan Boy in his coat. Ella called after
him. He didn't answer. He set his face like a plow towards
town. Ella hunied for the baby and caught up with him.
They walked silently in the dusty road, she with the baby,
he holding the Boy. They came up to Jenkins'
farm. Bruce
was splitting wood. He craned over his wood, walked up to
look. "Jesus Christ!" He flung his axe down and went
along.
The road went downhill. A cow was cropping grass along
the road. Old man Tetley and his Jennie rose up from the
roadside with sticks. Tetley hobbled over, looked at the Boy,
and groaned, "And I won five dollars, made a piece of liv-
ing off'n him once." But how could he leave Jennie alone
with the cow? Lumpkin had a twelve-dollar mortgage on
her. They had to watch her day and night, else he'd come
take her. Jennie cried, "We kin take her."
Ring stalked ahead with the Boy clutched to his chest.
Tetley drove the cow right behind him. As they came up
to the crossing, Sandy hurried down, hollering. He jumped
the tracks. Ring opened up the coat. Sandy's hand twitched.
He stroked the limp head with a thumb. "Sons of bitches,
sons of bitches." He dashed to the boxcar into which he had
moved Mary and his young ones.
All along the road to town the sight of dead Orphan Boy
roused people. When Ring got to the edge of town, a great
crowd was with him. The crowd choked the street in front
of Tarr's shop. You couldn't get in the shop or out. Tarr
was afraid he'd cut his customer's throat. He shoved out
into the crowd. Sandy yelled, "Come on, Tarr." Tan got
on the bench which always stood in front of his shop.
The people listened. They touched Orphan Boy. They
stared down the street. A boy picked up a feather. He stuck
it into his cap.
The town was humming with Saturday trade. Cars shoved
up against the big stores like a litter of sucking pigs. Tan
jumped down oft the bench. The customer ran out with
lather on his face. "Hey, Tarr, where you beating it?"
Tan punched his fist over his head. "Come on, the shav-
ing kin wait. We got the Boy's funeral to 'tend first."
Ring shifted the cock higher. The Tetleys drove their
hornhipped cow. Sandy, Tan,
Bruce and the others stepped
out ahead. The women and children followed. The mer-
chants peeked through their doors. Lumpkin steered himself
like. a lopsided duck far, back into his store. Sheriff Luke
Smiley hurried up from in front of the bank. He jerked up
his hand. He jerked up both as a rotten peach smacked him.
His hat sailed across the street. He slapped his hand on his
bald head, turned tail and disappeared in an alley. The crowd
followed Orphan Boy and the cow down through the town
to the courthouse.
21
