The Orchard Keeper

The police come for Arthur three times. On the first attempt, Arthur displays his shotgun, forcing them to reconsider their tactics. On the second attempt, he shoots a deputy and the police riddle his house with bullets. On the third attempt, Arthur is not home when the police storm the house with gas grenades. He has taken his few belongings and Scout and is hiking through the rain. He spends days walking through the mountainous terrain. When he encounters two men leaning against a car, he makes conversation, asking them for directions. They offer him a ride toward Sevierville but he declines, saying that he plans to “put up some kind of piece of a house and kindly settle” (100). He does accept an offer to eat with them in their mountain cabin. They share tobacco and “right good drinkin whiskey” (101). After breakfast, Arthur sets off again and sleeps at the foot of the mountain.

Gifford talks to the storekeeper, Huffaker, about Arthur. Though Huffaker has nothing to report, he comes back daily for a week. He waits for Arthur to turn up at the store again. On the mountainside, Arthur hikes with Scout. He carries “a limp and greasy paper bag of the curious twisted roots” (105). Typically, he sells these ginseng roots to Huffaker and uses the money to purchase supplies. As he hikes, his shoe is close to falling apart. He reaches Huffaker’s store, where Gifford watches him “with the composed disinterest of a professional assassin” (106). He arrests Arthur. As Arthur is led to the car, Scout follows helplessly behind him. Gifford refuses to allow Scout to join them, so they leave the dog behind as they drive away. Scout pads along in the wake of the car.

Warn and John talk about the hides they have recently sold. Warn tells John that he should not become involved with Marion or sign papers that commit him to buying traps at a certain price. In Warn’s bedroom, they look through a book titled “TRAPPING THE FUR BEARERS OF NORTH AMERICA” for information on how to trap a large cat (108). They suspect that a bobcat attacked the mink in John’s trap.

At a police station, a sergeant books Marion. He tries to give a false name but the sergeant corrects him. When he declines to discuss his previous convictions, the police officers hit him with a nightstick. Eventually, he is booked in for “illegal possession—untaxed” (110). In jail, he has a series of visitors, including Gifford and John, who tells the police that Marion is his uncle. Marion explains that his wounds are not from crashing his car; the police officers, with Gifford’s help, beat him. Marion explains that the water in his gas tank—caused by the heavy rain—led to his car breaking down and him being caught. John offers to take revenge against Gifford, but Marion insists that John “owes [him] nothing” (111). He eventually accepts John’s offer of $2, loaned to him originally to pay for the traps. Now, Marion says, they are “square,” but John refuses to promise to stay away from Gifford. Marion explains that Gifford is just doing his job and that he accepts the threat of violence or jail because he makes more money in three hours than a working man makes in a week. After John leaves, Marion is tempted to call him back and say that everything he said was a lie, but he is too late.

The panther emerges from her “degenerate habitation” and prowls through the mountainside. She searches for food and finds nothing. An owl dives from above and strikes her on the back. Mr. Eller hears the wail of a cat from the sky above him.

A young social worker visits Arthur in jail. Arthur has been charged with a variety of offenses, ranging from the destruction of government property to assault with intent to kill. The social worker wants to determine whether Arthur is entitled to any benefits, but he struggles to comprehend the situation and often turns the social worker’s questions around, as though they were having a normal conversation. He claims that he does not “remember too good” (115). Eventually, Arthur tires of the questions and tells the social worker to ask him plainly why he did what he did. The social worker gathers his forms and leaves.

In a mental health institution, Arthur listens to the sound of mowers passing outside. John visits, claiming to be Arthur’s nephew. He brings Arthur chewing tobacco and they talk about the weather. John mentions that Marion has been convicted of bootlegging whiskey, and Arthur denounces this as “pitiful.” When Arthur asks about Warn, John admits that Red Branch is nearly deserted. Arthur talks about the spiritual nature of cats. He asks John what he will do for money and talks about the struggles of growing old. Inwardly, he thinks about his regrets and his enmity toward the metal tank and the government’s intrusion on his lifestyle. Arthur asks after Scout and John promises to care for him. Inwardly, Arthur remembers being shot in the leg while trying to confront his estranged wife. John leaves. He visits the government offices to inquire about the bounty he received for the hawk, wanting to trade back. The office worker tells him that this is impossible, as the bounties are burned in the furnace. John rambles about Arthur and Marion, trying to push his dollar across the counter and saying the hawk “wadn’t for sale” (123). He runs out of the building.

Kenneth’s bones are recovered from the pit. Mr. Eller and Johnny Romines watch the coroner work and wonder whether John would ever “know [the recovered skeleton] was his daddy” (124). John has been away from Red Branch for some months, and Mr. Eller suspects that Arthur told the officials about the body in the pit. John’s mother has had a vision that John is away, hunting his father’s killer. Either she does not know that her husband was wanted in three states, or she refuses to admit that he was a criminal. Gifford plans to talk to John. He explains that the injury that Kenneth supposedly sustained in the war was a lie. According to Eller, Legwater is searching for the platinum skull plate that belonged to Kenneth. While Legwater is camping, Scout surprises him and Legwater fires his shotgun into the darkness. The dog disappears. Legwater wakes at dawn and begins searching in the pit again after breakfast. Local boys watch and laugh at him. He works all day and at night sees Scout again. He runs out of food, and the fruit from the orchard makes his stomach cramp. The next day, Gifford appears and reveals to Legwater that Kenneth “never had no—no thing in his head” (127). Legwater searches frantically and then insists that John recovered his father’s skull plate for himself. Gifford drives Legwater down off the mountain. At the last turn, they spot Scout again, walking “like a trained dog on a rope” (128). Legwater shoots Scout and the dog falls over in the road.

John returns to Red Branch after three years away. He visits his mother’s house, which has been abandoned like the rest of the town. Looking back at the house, he thinks that “it was never his house anyway” (129). In the evening, he finds his mother’s grave. He reads the epitaph, a quote from the Bible (Exodus 22:23). John pats the headstone. He sees a man and woman in a car in the distance, but they do not respond to his wave. John begins to walk away from the abandoned town where “no vestige of that people remains” (130).