Wanderer Springs: A Novel

Center Point

CENTER POINT where Larissa Bell died of reading and Buster Bryant roped his own horse I KNEW I was in Wanderer Springs County when I crossed Starvation Creek. Llrissa Bell had lived on Starvation Creek. Her husband had died ofsome unknown ailment and Larissa had stayed on. Indian braves had tried to steal chickens from her, and Larissa had nO[ only stopped them and lectured £hem on the eighth commandment , she ordered them to go back across the river and get themselves baptized. larissa believed the onlygood Indian was a Baptist deacon. Larissa held liberal views, brought on by reading, and was held in contempt by the Lmces although uuissa had rid· den fany solitary miles so that Ma Lance would not die without awoman present. The Lances' opinion was confirmed when Chris Arp caused a county-wide panic with headlines predicting a yellow fever epidemic caused by a wet summer followed by an early fall. "People will die like sheep with the rot," he reponed. Dr. Vestal,who was ovelWorked, seldom paid, and finally driven out of the county by the peoples need, made a hurried trip to Center Point to assure the editor [hat it was a far less serious fever and that no one should die ofit. "It may not look like a yellow feverepidemic to adoctor but it looks likeayellow fever epidemic to me," Chris declared. "And its my paper." Dr. Vestal spent several sleepless nights traveling about 65 66 "*"WANDERER SPRINGS the county, reassuring folks that they didn't have to die. When hegot to Larissa Bell, he found her beyond solace, the first person in the county to die of misinformation. Elma Dell was gone, along with Sand. Lank had blown away in a tornado and not been rebuilt; Red Top failed to survive the Depression, and Bull Valley had succumbed to the prosperity of World War II. The gin, the store, and the Methodist Church in Medicine Hill had lasted until mid-century. Of all the county names only Center Point and Wanderer Springs still existed on any map. Only the asphalt seemed to grow. A welfare government had subsidized out-or-work engineers and contractors by paving over whatever was not plowed or used by cattle. Off to the west, along the Mobeetie River, was where Elmer Spruill killed the last buffalo. Elmer was just a kid, riding for his father, when he found a buffalo cow and calf. Buffalo hadn't been seen in the county for a few years and Elmer knew no one would believe he had seen one. He tried to drive the buffalo to the wagon, but the cow wouldn't drive. Elmer didn't have a gun, so he roped the buffalo, snubbed her close to a hackberry nee, and rode for the wagon. His father, Oscar, didn't believe him and refused to look until the next morning. They found the buffalo cow still tied to the tree and half eaten by lobos. They also found a buffalo calf that, left unprotected, had also been killed by the wolves. Folks deplored Eimers methods but they gave him credit for the kill. The Spruills had a reputation for being unorthodox. It was that reputation that pennitted Elmer to chaseJosh Kincheloe's mysterious animal rather than killing Earl Lance. Elmer never saw the animal he chased, but when his eyesight began to fail, Elmer married Josh Kincheloes youngest daughter . Kincheloe went right on having children as though an animal no one else ever saw hadn't marked them, even the girls being cockeyed and dogeared. Persia, the one Elmer married, always looked like she was about to spit. CENTER POINT"*" 67 Elmer fathered four children, including a girl named Jessie who married Horace Tooley. Jessie looked like a Spruill instead ofa Kincheloe. Uke the other Spruill women,Jessiesometimes went deaf. Ahead I could see the skyline of Center Point although 1 was still some miles away. It wasn't much ofa skyline, just grain elevators. Not even a grandiose counhouse in the Texas tradition . Practical-minded Center Point had built a counhouse that looked like a bread box. "They can't see no higher than a dollar bill," folks said in Wanderer Springs, and for years talked of burning it down. Houses built along highways seem in a state of disrepair -boards missing from fences, paim peeling from houses, weeds growing in yards, the trees...