Nathan accepts the proposition and secretly cherishes it. He says nothing more since Burke is running toward them, lumbering along the rail, surefooted.
"I got some beer," Burke says, "you want to drink one?"
"I got some too." Roy reaches for his jeans. "It's in the truck." Burke gestures. "You reckon we ought to go back?"
"I'm ready. I've had all the swimming I need."
Randy halts some distance from the center of the bridge. "I'm right thirsty too."
"You going to drink a beer?" Burke asks Nathan.
"He don't need to" Roy says.
"I know he don't need to. But I might ought to pour one down his throat just to see how he would act." Laughing with an edge of meanness.
They leave the bridge and find their way along the tracks as the sun eases behind the trees. Nathan feels as if he has been away from home forever already. Every moment echoes of Roy. They walk side by side up the tracks, steady presence, as Burke and Randy weave in and out
Burke has beer in a bucket of ice in the back of his truck. He hands one to each of the others, also offering a can to Nathan, who shakes his head no, but with respect. They drink. Glimpses of the beer and hints of the acrid smell remind Nathan. When his father swallows liquor, his throat moves in the same snakelike motion, the undulating of long, smooth muscles. Nathan shakes his head, focuses on the moon in the fender of the truck, the sound of a river, the shadowy trestle, and the closeness of the three boys. The four. He can include himself. He stands near Roy as Roy swallows, his smile a little softened by the beer, and the curl of last evening light in the sky.
Burke has draped a flannel shirt loose over his shoulders. He is lacing heavy work boots over his ankles. He sips from the beer can like a suckling. Shadows obscure his eyes.
Randy dresses watching Burke's back. In Randy's eyes is a round blankness.
Roy drinks. "What are you boys up to the rest of the evening?"
"Riding." Randy buckles his belt and adjusts the silver buckle to get it properly centered. "We'll probably run around in Hoon Holler a little while."
"See if we can't get us some." Burke aims his voice into the grass. "You going out with Evelyn?"
Roy shifts uncomfortably. Nathan stares into space behind Burke's head. "No. We ain't going out tonight."
"She running around on you?"
"Hell no. We ain't going out tonight, that's all." His tone is meant to warn Burke off the subject
Burke watches Nathan with cool deliberation. "She's a hell of a good girl. Evelyn."
This falls into silence. Nathan finds himself unable to look at Roy.
Finally Roy says, "We ought to go camping before it gets too cold."
"You reckon?" Randy inspects his countenance in the side mirror of Burke's truck. "Where you want to go?"
"Up toward Handle. You know where I mean? Past the Indian mound, up Old Poke's Road."
"My dad used to take me hunting toward Handle," Burke says. "It gets wild around in there."
"We ought to go," Roy says. Lightly touching Nathan on the shoulder, casual but inclusive. "That's where the haunted house is. Remember I told you?"
They sip beer and consider the proposition.
"You and Nathan ought to come up to Hoon Holler with us tonight." Burke is watching Nathan again, a direct inspection, almost a challenge.
"We might. We're going to ride around a little while too. We might see you around there later."
"All right."
The easy conversation continues through another beer. Randy and Roy talk about the deer hunting season and baseball. They agree that baseball is a better game than football. Burke would be playing football except the team is mostly black and his dad won't let him play with blacks. The night rises full of sound, cities of crickets in one long ululation. Nathan watches the beer changes in Roy's face, the slow relaxation of facial muscles, the heaviness of eyelids. Randy tells a story about a girl from Hoon Holler who is supposed to be pretty much of a whore, who will do it with anybody. Might as well stick your hand in a cow pussy as that, Burke says. And Roy agrees and they all laugh.
But the conversation excludes Nathan. What is curious is that the fact seems implicit in the circumstances, as if they all understand that Nathan will not participate, that Nathan has nothing to do with talk about a girl of easy virtue in Hoon Holler. He has only to add the smallest of laughs at the appropriate moment. He comes from another world than the one in which these boys live. He sometimes inhabits the same world as Roy, but right now it's hard to tell. There follows a round of talking about girls in mechanical ways, about how to slide your hands into a brassiere, or how many fingers a girl will let you put inside her thing. There is the round of talking about cars. Randy asks if Roy's dad still has that same John Deere tractor, and Roy says he bought a new Allis Chalmers.
