Eating Buzzards
 by Gerald Thurmond

	Jim paced over each railroad tie, looking for the body he didn't 
want to find. He marched up the steep grade and turned his head left and 
right with each measured step from tie to tie. The ties were marking his 
memory, moments that passed through him like a second-hand that would 
not sweep, but paused on each mark of the clock dial. Gravel, tie, 
gravel, tie. 
	He focused his attention between the extended rails, not knowing 
what was around each turn. What did a dead person look like? Did it look 
like a dead fish, deer, or quail? He didn't want to keep walking, but he 
forced his feet on and up the track.  His shoes felt like they were 
weighed down with memories. He picked up each foot and lifted it closer 
to the uncertain future. 	
	The track wound up Signal Mountain and through the narrow passage 
between the Great Smokeys. It climbed steeply and switched back across 
the mountain face. He guessed that three more miles separated him from 
the railway crew. He wondered if he would see a state line sign. No, 
that's only on the highway he had taken to the mountains with his mother 
and neighbor.
	The events of that morning paced across his brain.  

	It started when he was in the kitchen making his lunch for school.  
He was listening to WSB, trying to decide if he should wear his 
raincoat.  
	"Good morning, it's seven o'clock.  Nationally, the stock market 
continues its sharp decline," the metallic voice said. "President Hoover 
has scheduled a press conference for one o'clock today to discuss the 
apparent collapse of Wall Street.  WSB will cover the press conference 
live, via telegraph.  
	"In local news, Pullman Car No. 28 derailed between the Georgia 
and Tennessee line last night. It was carrying freight and passengers 
bound for Chattanooga. Railway officials are on the scene where bodies 
are being pulled from the wreckage of the overturned train. Over 100 
passengers were thought to be on board. Railway officials said the 
derailment was most likely caused by mechanical brake failure on the 
switch-backs of Signal Mountain; but details of a full investigation 
will be released later. We will update this story as it evolves. In the 
weather today, rain is expected throughout metropolitan . . . " 
	Jim wondered if he had heard the announcer right or if he were 
still dreaming from last night. What car did he say? No. 28?  Pullman? 
His heart beat faster, irregularly. He stood up, fought off a mental 
blackout that tried to draw him into a tunnel of darkness, and pulled 
the printed schedule down from the refrigerator. The magnetic clip 
released the document, fell from the refrigerator, bounced off the floor 
and rolled under the sink.
	"Mom," he yelled upstairs, "come down here quick. There's been a 
railroad accident."
	His mother came down the stairs in her pink bathrobe and black 
furry slippers. Without heels she stood under five feet in height, 
magnifying her child-like looks. She was often thought, by strangers, to 
be Jim's sister--they were only sixteen years apart in age. Only the 
crow's feet and deep lines beneath her eyes belied her true age of 
thirty-one. Her glazey hazel eyes opened into slits and stared at her 
son.
	"What's going on, Jimmy?"
	"Car 28 derailed on Signal Mountain last night."
	She paused, looked at Jim as if he were lying, and tried to 
swallow against a dry mouth. 
	"Where's the schedule?" she stammered. 
	He unwrinkled the paper from his fist and handed it to her.  She 
looked at it, then back at Jim, then returned her stare to the paper.
	"What did you say?" she asked, combing her fingers through her 
tightly curled hair.
	"The radio just said that Pullman car No. 28 derailed last night 
in Tennessee.  They're searching for the bodies."
	Mrs. Williams sat down slowly. She rubbed her eyes, put the 
schedule on the kitchen table and looked at it again. A gradual, grim 
realization fell across her face. Her eyes widened and scanned back and 
forth across a field of empty space between the unraveled schedule and 
her contracted pupils. 
	"Call the railroad and ask them what's going on," she said from 
her trance.  "And put on some coffee." 
	Jim picked up the phone and asked the operator to connect him to 
the Pullman information office. All lines were busy. He hung up the 
receiver with an unsteady hand.
	"Mom, the lines are all busy," Jim offered, "but the radio said 
they would update the news when more information came in."
	Jim sat down next to his mother and held her hand. They listened 
to the radio for an hour, waiting for news.  
	The screen-door slammed shut and startled them both. Their 
neighbor Mrs. Reardon stood in the foyer that lead into the kitchen. She 
was in her bathrobe and curlers, and was wearing no makeup. Her 
countenance was severe. When she saw the railroad schedule in Mrs. 
William's hand and the confusion on Jim's face, Mrs. Reardon sat down in 
silence. 	
	They drank coffee and watched their plates of grits and bacon 
solidify and congeal. Jim wondered if he could build a brick outhouse 
using grits as mortar.  
	By ten o'clock the radio reports were still vague.  
	"Bodies are being recovered from the mountainside;" the scratchy 
voice said, "but no names will be released until positive identification 
is made and the families of the deceased are notified . . . "  
	They called the railroad office again, finally getting connected 
to the information clerk. She told them what the radio had said. Bodies 
had been thrown from the train. A search was in progress. Details would 
be announced over the radio.  
	The two women could wait no longer. They felt like they needed to 
do something, so they decided to drive the 110 miles to Signal Mountain. 
They would listen to the radio in the car.  
	Jim sat in the back seat and wondered what was going on.  Why 
hadn't they announced anything? Were there any survivors? 

	Riding up to Signal Mountain, Jim thought about his father, the 
man who ruled his house, ordered his mother around, and expected 
complete compliance from them both. He did not grant an ounce of leeway. 
Any broken rule was punished by the sudden belt or clenched hand. Both 
he and his mother were punished as unruly children. They cried and 
prayed together after their punishments.  Mom prayed for Popa's soul, 
but Jim prayed for discipline. Jim learned that order and discipline 
were good things. They made him think better. His mind stayed clear. He 
did better in school and through order and discipline had managed to 
save twenty dollars--an amount so great that for Christmas it would buy 
a box of Cuban cigars for Popa, a lace handkerchief for Mom, a dozen 
shotgun shells and new fishing flies for Jim's sportsman box.  
	Jim knew both sides of Popa. The man of the house and the man in 
the woods. Popa was so different when they were hunting or fishing. He 
was almost kind and loving. He was the naturalist John Muir and Jim was 
his disciple. He was the nature lover and master-hunter; Jim was the 
apprentice-cleaner who had to pass countless tests before he could cast 
a line or load a gun.  
	Jim was not allowed to bait a hook until he could clean a fish, 
gut it, scale it, and lay the fillet flat across the ice.  He was not 
allowed to load a shotgun until he could field dress a deer, skin it, 
bleed it, carry it to the truck, and carve it into steaks. Those were 
the rules. When he had learned these basics, Jim was given a rod and 
reel for his birthday and a shotgun for Christmas. He wasn't allowed to 
touch them until he could describe each of their components, where they 
fit, what function they performed, and how they could hurt a man if he 
didn't know how to treat them with respect. Not until he was twelve was 
Jim allowed to fire his first shotgun or cast his first line. When he 
finally went out with his Popa, rod or shotgun slung over his shoulder, 
Jim felt like he was a man. Popa then let him go into the woods with the 
neighborhood men and their sons. 
	Their first hunting season together was three years ago. Jim 
couldn't imagine a hunting season without Popa. He still had a lot to 
learn about calling ducks, flushing quail, tracking deer, tracking, 
tracks, railroad tracks . . .

	"Jimmy, why are you so quiet?" his Mom asked from the front seat 
of the northbound car.
	"I'm just thinking."
	"What's on your mind, son?"
	"I'm thinking about how much I like hunting and fishing with Popa. 
That's the best thing we do."
	"Don't you worry now, we'll find out soon enough and--God willing-
-this day'll be over before you know it."
	Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Reardon returned their attention to the two 
lane highway. The new Ford droned up the graded hills and ascended 
toward Signal Mountain and the narrow railway pass. The whining of the 
differential gears lulled Jim back to thoughts of Popa.

	He was thinking that his favorite times with Popa were when they 
were up before sunlight, silently preparing for the group hunt. Each was 
responsible for himself. Each was treated as a man, though the sons knew 
they were second-class sportsmen, competing for the acceptance of their 
fathers. Jim Williams, Freddy Reardon, Bobby Jones, and Johnny Fulcher 
wanted to be men.  They chewed secret tobacco at night in their bunk 
beds. They put a spit bucket in the center of floor and took turns 
spitting into it. Whoever missed the most, after five rounds, had to 
clean it up. 
	After a day of hunting or fishing, the boys were sent to their 
bunks while the men stayed up late, making noise, shouting and carrying-
on in a way that men only do when they are away from their wives. The 
boys stayed up too, chewing their tobacco and telling stories about the 
hunt, girls, and school. 
	While the men shouted and smoked cigars, the boys talked about how 
they were going to set up their own still, just like the ones on the 
police page: a bathtub with a boiler and coils of copper pipe. Bobby 
knew where a bathtub was in the woods. Jim and Freddy could get copper 
pipe from the railroad yard. They could get corn from the market. They 
could build a shelter around it and camouflage it like a field blind. 
But they were just talking, all except Johnny who had little interest 
because his Dad secretly served homemade wine with every meal, even on 
the sabbath. But he feigned interest by listening with open eyes.  
	They agreed that their fathers would whip them sober if such a 
thing were found out. Their fathers would severely punish them because a 
man could go to jail under the Volstead Act, according to what they read 
in the papers. The illegality and immorality of it only sweetened their 
cunning, planning, and deception. Each knew he would get it bad--the 
risks were high--so they talked it up like prisoners planning an escape 
that would lead either to their freedom or execution. 
	Bobby's father was the preacher. He would get it the worst, so he 
was talking the most manure. They said that Jim and Johnny would get it 
the least, probably have it "confiscated" for medical purposes. Jim knew 
better. He knew from church and Popa that drinking was the devil's 
poison, a sin that sent you to hell unless you "moderated" and only 
drank when it was "appropriate," like at private weddings and bachelor 
parties. If anyone got caught, Jim would get it the worst. He would get 
the belt, not the switch. It would land on his hide with a sudden stop.

	The Ford and Jim's thoughts halted under a railroad overpass. Mrs. 
Williams reached her hand out to Mrs. Reardon, paused, then turned her 
head back over the bench seat to look at Jim. 
	"Jimmy, you get up there and start walking the tracks to the 
mountain top," Jim's Mom said with a tremble in her voice. "Mrs. Reardon 
and I are going to start from the Tennessee side and meet you at the 
wreck. Don't touch no dead people, except if they look like Popa. And if 
you find Popa, run to the wreck and wait for us there. Radio said it's 
on the Tennessee side, third switch-back off the mountain top. Now go 
on, boy and be strong. Your Popa'd want you to be strong now." Mrs. 
Williams turned her head from Jimmy. Her hazel eyes held pools of 
suppressed sorrow.  	
	Mrs. Reardon reached for her hand again. "He'd want you to be 
strong too, Lizzie," she said.  

	Gravel, tie, gravel, tie. 
	Jim paced on. He felt like a steam engine, straining against the 
mountain, pulling the weight of passengers, freight cars, mail, coal, 
fire, and water. What was a baptism by fire? Jim wondered. Bobby's dad 
preached about that in church yesterday when he and Mom went alone. Popa 
couldn't come because he was hauling freight to Charleston. Jim liked 
looking at Popa in his Sunday clothes. Popa looked like Clark Kent on 
Sundays.  
	In the church pew Mrs. Williams and Jim sat so close to the pulpit 
that Jim could see the breath trails coming out of Rev. Jones's nose. 
The combination of cold air and rising breath made Rev. Jones look like 
a gothic statue from a New York stone building. Jim knew about New York 
because Popa had taken him there last Easter break.

	The New York-bound train clickety clicked over each state line. 
Seven hundred miles north of Atlanta it was still winter.  Jim didn't 
know about that. He sat in the back of the coal car, sweating like a hot 
horse and admiring Popa's command over the train. Popa stared at a point 
one mile down the track, ordered around the shovel boy, watched the 
gauges, and shouted commands at the other engineers and firemen. Jim 
watched the whole world race by as the train hauled crates of peaches, 
oranges, and grapefruit up to the city where "folk don't know what fresh 
food is," Popa said. Popa knew everything and traveled everywhere. To 
Jim he was Marco Polo on wheels.
	The wind was cold; but the engine was hot with steam. Jim's sweat 
evaporated off his face like pan water from a wood stove.  By 
Pennsylvania he was shivering. In New Jersey he was coughing, and for 
three days in New York he lay ill in the railroad bunk bed, guarding 
Popa's grip-bag, and waiting for him to come back each night.
	Jim didn't care if he was stuck in bed sick, it was still the best 
trip ever. He didn't even mind when the Pullman nurse gave him bitter 
medicine and sat on his legs while taking his temperature. What made the 
trip so good was that each night Jim and Popa talked in the bunkhouse, 
like real men did.  
	The railroad workers would reel in after a night of "seeing the 
sights." Popa, red-eyed and tired from "speaking-easy with the Yankees," 
sat at the edge of Jim's bed and told him colorful stories about the 
people in the big city. Popa smelled like cigars and the medicine from 
the Pullman nurse.  
	"Popa did you get some medicine from the nurse?" he asked.
	"Why do you ask?" Popa said, cocking his head to the right and 
looking at Jim through his glassy left eye.  
	"'Cause you smell like it," Jim said sleepily.
	"I just took some preventive medicine tonight, son," Popa said, 
rising from Jim's bed. "Now go to sleep. We're leaving tomorrow." 
	Jim watched Popa stumble, undress, and fall into bed. He wondered 
why Popa would have taken medicine if he wasn't sick yet. He hadn't seen 
the nurse give him anything; and Popa sure smelled strong. Jim listened 
to him snore, matched his breathing to Popa's, and was soon asleep.  
	The next morning, after a phone call from Atlanta, Jim's Mom made 
Popa get him a passenger ticket for the ride back to Georgia. Jim felt 
important sitting in the Pullman coach car. He told his fellow 
passengers that HIS Popa was driving the train and they'd sure get there 
safe and on time. That was true. Mr. Williams had the best safety record 
in the Southeast Region and Jim was proud of it, at least until that 
morning.

	Gravel, tie, gravel, tie.  Left, right, look with the eyes of a 
buzzard sweeping a valley.  
	At the mountain top Jim descended carefully and looked for the 
switch-backs that were hidden by rows of pine trees. On the second turn 
he saw the first body lying on the gravel. Actually all he could see 
were the shoes and pant legs sticking out of the brush. The guy must 
have landed head first, Jim thought. The pants were old and ratty and 
the shoes, exposed from the brush, had holes in the bottom and tape over 
the toes. Jim guessed that it was a hobo who was free riding. He had 
seen one arrested in Baltimore on his trip to New York. The conductor 
and caboose-man swept the train at each major city and threw the bums 
off, arresting them if cops were around. Jim thought that this bum 
didn't escape being kicked-off by the railroad men. Pullman mechanics 
who didn't keep the brakes fixed had caused him to be thrown from the 
train, had caused his un-natural death. 
	Curiosity drew Jim closer. He pulled back the pine tree branch 
that covered the upper body. The body was stomach down; but the head was 
turned around so that the man looked like he was wearing a clerical 
collar. Jim knew that after shooting birds, you grabbed them by the neck 
and spun their bodies around like a ferris wheel, breaking the neck and 
quickly killing the wounded bird. Popa said it was merciful to break 
their necks if they were still alive after you shot them. Popa said that 
it was a sin not to eat what you killed, even if it was by accident. 
	Jim looked on the body again. He had never seen a dead man before, 
but figured that the bum's neck was broken, so he died with mercy, 
quickly and suddenly. Jim felt creepy. He didn't want to but he couldn't 
help wondering who would eat the man and absolve the accidental sin of 
the railroad killers.  Buzzards?  Jim started thinking about two years 
ago when he had to pay for his murdering sins. He had killed a buzzard 
while hunting with Popa and his railroad buddies.

	"Son, don't you know the difference between a buzzard and a black 
duck?"
	"Yessir, but I thought it was a duck, coming into the field to 
eat."
	"Boy, it may have been an accident, but you have to be responsible 
for your actions, you have to eat everything you kill. That's the law of 
nature," Popa said. He looked down at Jim, switched his cigar from one 
side of the mouth to the other, and spit on the ground. He towered over 
Jim at six feet three inches. His black hair curled out from under his 
hunting hat.  His face twisted up and looked on Jim with scorn, then 
pity.  
	"Son, you might get sick from eating this buzzard," he said, "but 
if you cook it all night it will taste less like crap."
	Jim learned a valuable lesson in mercy. Killing for fun, no 
reason, or accident was a sin. Killing for food was not a sin; but the 
buzzard still tasted like crap. Buzzards tasted like crap because they 
ate crap, dead flesh, trash. Black ducks tasted the best because they 
only ate plants. Mallards tasted fishy because they ate fish.
	While Jim tended to the buzzard all night, the railroad men and 
Popa played cards and drank hot cider. Jim wondered why they carried on 
so much. They drank a lot of cider and Jim was only allowed to drink 
cocoa. Coffee and cider were only for the fathers. Coffee was nasty 
anyway, Jim thought. And it was bad for your aim. Jim didn't understand 
why the fathers told the boys that coffee was bad for their aim, but 
necessary for the men.  Jim guessed it had something to do with staying 
up late and needing to wake up. It couldn't be anything else.   

	Gravel, tie, gravel, tie. On the second turn Jim found more 
bodies, some in really gross conditions. They were cold and swollen up, 
like flesh balloons. He wasn't looking at faces any more, just the 
clothing. He knew Popa's uniform of black and white stripes, almost like 
the convicts in the picture shows. On the third switchback he saw some 
railroad men carrying stretchers down the track. He smelled smoldering 
coal and burnt pine. A tall, skinny cloud of smoke was rising from down 
the mountain.  Jim figured it was the engine coal, still burning against 
the brush.
	"Hey boy, get down from that track," one of the skinny men 
shouted. "This is an accident scene. You get on down the mountain, 
heah?"
	"I'm looking for my Popa," Jim said, trying to choke back a crack 
in his voice. 
	"Come on down, boy," the man repeated, grabbing a stretcher and 
turning around. "Go ask the foreman near the wreck." The man shouted 
those last words with his back turned to Jim. Jim acted like he didn't 
hear the man and kept on looking for his Popa. He looked at every body 
he could see. Some were thrown clear over the tree tops and down onto 
the mountain face. Jim wondered if any had survived. Some had to have, 
he guessed. Maybe some people only got a broken leg or something. Not 
everyone could have been crushed or killed.
	After looking at another ten bodies, Jim made it to the wreck: a 
hideous vision of twisted track and torn metal. The freight cars had 
jumped track first and had cleared the mountain face like a forest fire 
or team of lumberjacks with chainsaws.  No plants, trees or anything was 
left where the freight trains  had scraped the earth. Cargo was spilled 
everywhere--torn boxes of machine parts, crushed equipment, and 
punctured, leaky barrels of oil. 
	About a hundred feet further, at the sharp turn of the  third 
switchback, Jim looked in awe at the scene of destruction.  The track 
was wrenched from the ground. Passenger cars and the steam engine were 
lying on their sides fifty feet down the mountain face. The mountain was 
so steep that the cars and engine were almost upside down. Up on the 
track Jim could see about twenty men pulling up stretchers of bodies and 
loading them onto a passenger car that had become a hospital on wheels.  
Among the rescue vehicles there were three hospital cars and one engine. 
	Jim saw his mother walking from the other side of the wreckage. 
She was arriving at the scene the same time Jim was.  Mrs. Reardon 
walked with her, but they didn't make good time.  They were wearing 
heels and carrying umbrellas. Jim just then realized that it had been 
raining. He hadn't noticed before. The rain was beaded and dripping from 
his Popa's hunting jacket and the Yankees hat he bought at Penn Station.
	Jim felt like he was watching the world though the eyes of a bird 
flying overhead. He was sweeping around, looking at the wreck and 
wondering what it was all meant. 
	"Jimmy, come down here son," his mother called. "Did you find 
Popa?"
	"Nome," Jim said blankly.
	"Let's go ask the foreman."
	They held hands with Mrs. Reardon and walked toward the tall man 
in the dark suit, overcoat, and hat. He had a clipboard with papers that 
he was checking off with a pencil. He put the pencil behind his ear and 
turned to look at the two women. 
	"Ladies, what are you doing up here?"
	"Her husband was on this train," Mrs. Reardon said.  "He was the 
chief engineer.  Where is he?"
	"I'm sorry to tell you this ma'am," the foreman said, lowering his 
eyes and looking at the piece of railroad track in front of Mrs. 
Williams and Jim. "The chief engineer is dead. He was crushed by the 
train when it overturned."
	The foreman raised his eyes from the railroad track and looked 
into Mrs. Williams's face. "When we found the wreck, his hand was still 
on the brake, ma'am, so he died trying to save others. He didn't jump 
the train like the other crew did. Arthur Bennett will be considered a 
hero for his bravery."
	Mrs. Williams gasped and dropped to her knees, grabbing for Jim as 
she fell. Jim reflexively reached out for her arm, but he missed; and 
she fell on gravel, between two ties.  
	Jim watched his mother fall to the ground. He hovered over her 
like a bird circling an inlet cove. He fought off the sensations of 
distance and estrangement and reached down to her, picking her up and 
regaining his own conscious awareness, like Proteus changing from a 
flying bird to a grounded man.
	"Sir," Jim said with a strained voice. "Did you say the  chief 
engineer was Arthur Bennett?"
	"Yes, son," the foreman repeated, looking down at Jim's wet boots.  
"I'm awfully sorry, son."
	"But my Popa is James Williams," Jim said.
	The foreman's face changed. Color returned to his cheeks and he 
began to smile broadly. His eyes lit with the single pleasure he had 
felt that day.
	"Your Popa's James Williams? Son, it's your luckiest day.  Your 
Popa called in sick yesterday. Boys say he's down at the speakeasy, 
drinking it big and gambling hard," the foreman proudly said, looking 
around in a half circle. His voice suddenly hushed and as he regained 
his somber composure.  "Your Popa must be the luckiest man in the world 
today."
	Jim looked desperately into the foreman's face. "But that can't be 
my Popa. He doesn't drink or gamble."
	"Son," the foreman said, "calling in sick saved your Popa's life. 
Now count your blessings."
	Jim was stupefied. He started feeling like a buzzard again, 
soaring in circles over the wreckage. He looked down at his Mom, who was 
now supported by Mrs. Reardon. She swooned again.
	"Thank God he's alive!" she said and fell across the gravel, tie, 
gravel, and tie.
	Jim felt dizzy. His head was spinning and spiraling upward, 
lifting him to the hovering heights of a preying buzzard. He wondered 
what the body of a dead hero tasted like. He wondered who would have to 
eat it.

