Town Smokes and Other Stories

The Sutton Pie Safe

Ablacksnake lay stretched out on the cracked slab of concrete near the diesel tank. It kept still in a spot of sun. It had drawn clear membranes across its eyes, had puffed its glistening scales a little, soaking up the heat of the day. It must have been three feet long.

There’s one, dad, I said, pointing at it. My father was staring at the old pole barn, listening to the birds in the loft as they chattered and swooped from one sagging rafter to another. The pole barn was leaning hard to one side, the west wall buckling under. The next big summer storm would probably knock it down. The winter had been hard, the snows heavy, and the weight had snapped the ridge-pole. I wondered where we would put that summer’s hay.

Where is he? my dad asked. He held the cut-down .410 in one hand, the short barrel cradled in the crook of his elbow, stock tight against his bare ribs. We were looking for copperheads to kill, but I thought maybe I could coax my dad into shooting the sleeping blacksnake. I loved the crack of the gun, the smell of sulphur from the opened breech. Again I pointed to the snake.

Whew, he said, that’s a big one there. What do you figure, two, two and a half feet? Three, I said. Three at least. He grunted.

You gonna kill it? I asked.

Boys want to kill everything, don’t they? he said to me, grinning. Then, more seriously, Not too good an idea to kill a blacksnake. They keep the mice down, the rats. Better than a cat, really, a good-sized blacksnake.

He stood, considering the unmoving snake, his lips pursed. He tapped the stock of the gun against his forearm. Behind us, past the line of willow trees near the house, I heard the crunch of gravel in the driveway. Somebody was driving up. We both turned to watch as the car stopped next to the smokehouse. It was a big car, Buick Riviera, and I could see that the metallic flake finish had taken a beating on the way up our lane.

My father started forward, then stopped. A woman got out of the car, a tall woman in a blue sun dress. She looked over the car at us, half waved. She had honey-colored hair that hung to her shoulders, and beautiful, well-muscled arms. Her wave was uncertain. When I looked at my dad, he seemed embarrassed to have been caught without a shirt. He raised the gun in a salute, decided that wasn’t right, lowered the gun and waved his other hand instead.

It was too far to talk without shouting, so we didn’t say anything, and neither did the woman. We all stood there a minute longer. Then I started over toward her.

Boy, my dad said. I stopped. Don’t you want to get that snake? he said.

Thought it wasn’t good to kill blacksnakes, I said. I gestured toward the house. Who is she? I asked.

Friend of your mother’s, he said. His eyes were on her. She had turned from us, was at the screen porch. I could see her talking through the mesh to my mother, nodding her head. She had a purse in her hand, waved it to emphasize something she was saying. Your mom’ll take care of her, my dad said. The woman opened the porch door, entered. The blue sun dress was pretty much backless, and I watched her go. Once she was on the porch, she was no more than a silhouette.

Sure is pretty, I said to my father. Yeah, he said. He snapped the .410’s safety off, stepped over to the diesel рump. The snake sensed his coming, turned hooded eyes on him. The sensitive tongue flicked from the curved mouth, testing the air, the warm concrete. For just a second, I saw the pink inner lining of the mouth, saw the rows of tiny, backward curving fangs. When I was ten, just about your age, my dad said, levelling the gun at the snake, my daddy killed a big old blacksnake out in our back yard.

The snake, with reluctance, started to crawl from the spot of sun. My dad steadied the gun on it with both hands. It was a short weapon, the barrel and stock both cut down. It couldn’t have measured more than twenty inches overall. Easy to carry, quick to use: perfect for snake. He killed that blacksnake, pegged the skin out, and give it to me for a belt, my dad said. He closed one eye, squeezed the trigger.

The shot tore the head off the snake. At the sound, a couple of barn swallows flew from the haymow, streaked around the barn, swept back into the dark loft. I watched the body of the snake vibrate and twitch, watched it crawl rapidly away from the place where it had died. It moved more quickly than I’d seen it move that afternoon. The blood was dark, darker than beets or raspberry juice. My dad snapped the bolt of the gun open, and the spent cartridge bounced on the concrete. When the snake’s body twisted toward me, I stepped away from it.

My dad picked the snake up from the mess of its head. The dead snake, long and heavy, threw a couple of coils over his wrist. He shook them off, shook the body of the snake out straight, let it hang down from his hand. It was longer than one of his legs. Wore that belt for a lot of years, he said, and I noticed that my ears were ringing. It took me a second to understand what he was talking about. Wore it ‘til it fell apart. He offered the snake to me, but I didn’t want to touch it. He laughed.

Let’s go show your mother, he said, walking past me toward the house. I thought of the woman in the sun dress, wondered what she would think of the blacksnake. I followed my dad, watching the snake. Its movements were slowing now, lapsing into a rhythmic twitching along the whole length of its body.

As we passed the smokehouse and the parked Riviera, I asked him, What’s her name? He looked at the car, back at me. I could hear my mother’s voice, and the voice of the other woman, couldn’t hear what they were saying.

Hanson, he said. Mrs. Hanson. Judge Hanson’s wife. Judge Hanson was a circuit court judge in the county seat; he’d talked at my school once, a big man wearing a three-piece suit, even though the day had been hot. It seemed to me that his wife must be a good deal younger than he was.

The snake in my father’s hand was motionless now, hung straight down toward the earth. His fingers were smeared with gore, and a line of blood streaked his chest.

Why’d you kill the blacksnake? I asked him. After what you said, about rats and all? I was still surprised he’d done it. He looked at me, and for a moment I didn’t think he was going to answer me.

He reached for the doorknob with his free hand, twisted it. Thought you’d know, he said. My daddy made a belt for me. I’m gonna make one for you.

* * *

The woman in the sun dress, Mrs. Hanson, was talking to my mother when we entered the porch. I was talking to Karen Spangler the other day, she said. My mother, sitting at the other end of the screen porch, nodded. Mrs. Spangler was one of our regular egg customers, came out about once every two weeks, just for a minute. Mrs. Hanson continued. She says that you all have just the best eggs, and the Judge and I wondered if you might possibly … She let the sentence trail off, turned to my father.

Why, hello, Mr. Albright, she said. She saw the snake, but she had poise: she didn’t react. My father nodded at her. Mrs. Hanson, he said. He held the snake up for my mother to see. Look here, Sara, he said. Found this one sunning himself out near the diesel pump.

My mother stood. You don’t want to bring that thing on the porch, Jack, she said. She was a small woman, my mother, with quick movements, deft reactions. There was anger in her eyes.

Thought I’d make a belt out of it for the boy, my dad said, ignoring her. He waved the snake, and a drop of blood fell from his hand to the floor. You remember that old snakeskin belt I had?

Mrs. Hanson came over to me, and I could smell her perfume. Her skin was tan, lightly freckled. I don’t think we’ve met, she said to me, like I was a man, and not just a boy. I tried to look her straight in the eye, found I couldn’t. No’m, I said. Don’t think we have.

His name’s Cates, my mother said. He’s ten. I didn’t like it that she answered for me. Mrs. Hanson nodded, held out her hand. Pleased to meet you, Cates, she said. I took her hand, shook it, realized I probably wasn’t supposed to shake a lady’s hand. I pulled back, noticed the grime under my fingernails, the dust on the backs of my hands. Pleased, I said, and Mrs. Hanson gave out a laugh that was like nothing I’d ever heard from a woman before, loud and happy.

You’ve a fine boy there, she said to my dad. I bent my head. To my father, my mother said, Why don’t you take that snake out of here, Jack. And get a shirt on. We’ve got company.

He darted a look at her. Then he waved the snake in the air, to point out to everybody what a fine, big black-snake it was. He opened the screen door, leaned out, and dropped the snake in a coiled heap next to the steps. It looked almost alive lying there, the sheen of the sun still on the dark scales. Mrs. Hanson, he said, and went on into the house. He let the door slam behind him, and I could hear him as he climbed the stairs inside.

Once he was gone, Mrs. Hanson seemed to settle back, to become more businesslike. The Judge and I certainly would appreciate the opportunity to buy some of your eggs. She sat down in one of the cane bottom chairs we kept on the porch in summer, set her purse down beside her. But Sara—may I call you Sara? she asked, and my mother nodded. Something else has brought me here as well. My mother sat forward in her chair, interested to hear. I leaned forward too, and Mrs. Hanson shot a glance my way. I could tell she wasn’t sure she wanted me there.

Sara, she said, you have a Sutton pie safe. She pointed across the porch, and at first I thought she meant the upright freezer that stood there. Then I saw she was pointing at the old breadbox.

My mother looked at it. Well, it’s a pie safe, she said. Sutton, I don’t know—

Oh, yes, it’s a Sutton, Mrs. Hanson said. Mrs. Spangler told me so, and I can tell she was right. Mrs. Spangler, so far as I knew, had never said anything to us about a pie safe. Mrs. Hanson rose, knelt in front of the thing, touched first one part of it and then another.

Here, you see, she said, pointing to the lower right corner of one of the pie safe’s doors. We’d always called it a breadbox, kept all kinds of things in it: canned goods, my dad’s ammunition and his reloading kit, things that needed to be kept cool in winter. The pie safe was made of cherry wood—you could tell even through the paint—with a pair of doors on the front. The doors had tin panels, and there were designs punched in the tin, swirls and circles and I don’t know what all. I looked at the place where she was pointing. SS I saw, stamped into the wood. The letters were mostly filled with paint; I’d never noticed them before.

Mrs. Hanson patted the thing, picked a chip of paint off it. My mother and I watched her. Of course, Mrs. Hanson said, this paint will have to come off. Oh, a complete refinishing job, I imagine. How lovely! She sounded thrilled. She ran her hands down the tin, feeling the holes where the metal-punch had gone through.

Damn, she said, and I was surprised to hear her curse. What’s the matter? my mother asked. Mrs. Hanson looked closely at the tin on the front of the pie safe. It’s been reversed, she said. The tin panels on the front, you see how the holes were punched in? It wasn’t put together that way, you know. When they punched this design in the tin, they poked it through from the back to the front, so the points were outside the pie safe.

Oh, my mother said, sounding deflated. It sounded ridiculous to me. I couldn’t figure why anyone would care which way the tin was put on the thing.

Sometimes country people do that, reverse the tin panels, Mrs. Hanson said in a low voice, as if she weren’t talking to country people. My mother didn’t disagree. Still, though, Mrs. Hanson said, it is a Sutton, and I must have it. What will you take for it?

I guess I should have known that she was angling to buy the thing all along, but still it surprised me. It surprised my mother too. Take for it? she said.

Yes, Mrs. Hanson said, it’s our anniversary next week—mine and the Judge’s—and 1 just know he would be thrilled with a Sutton piece. Especially one of the pie safes. Of course, I don’t think it’ll be possible to have it refinished by then, but he’ll see the possibilities.

I don’t know, my mother said, and I couldn’t believe she was considering the idea. Is it worth a lot? It was an odd way to arrive at a price, and I laughed. Both women looked at me as if they had forgotten that I was on the porch with them. I wondered what my father would say when he came down form putting on a shirt.

Mrs. Hanson turned back to my mother. Oh, yes, she said. Samuel Sutton was quite a workman, very famous throughout the Valley. People are vying to buy his pieces. And here I’ve found one all for myself. And the Judge. Then, as if understanding that she wasn’t being wise, she said, Of course, the damage to it, the tin and all, that does lower the value a great deal. And the paint. My father had painted the breadbox, the pie safe, when it had been in the kitchen years ago, to match the walls. We’d since moved it out to the porch, when my mother picked up a free-standing cupboard she liked better.

I don’t know, my mother said. After all, we don’t use it much anymore, just let it sit out here. And if you really want it… She sounded worried. She knew my father wasn’t going to be pleased with the idea. We should wait, ask my husband. Mrs. Hanson reached into her handbag, looking for her checkbook. I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Didn’t that belong to Granddad? I asked my mother. She looked at me, didn’t answer. Dad’s dad? I said, pressing.

It was in my husband’s family, my mother said to Mrs. Hanson. He might not like it.

Could we say, then, three hundred dollars? Would that be possible? Mrs. Hanson asked. She wasn’t going to give up. Just then, my father opened the door and stepped out of the house