All God's Dangers (61 page)

I set my bucket down side the road and went a runnin back down there. When I got up to him, I seed that big crocus sack settin down in the road, what that truck had just put off. Captain Springer said, “Nate, look in that sack and see what your fish basket done.”

It was a surprise to him, but I had confidence in my work. There was two catfish in that sack about as long as from my elbow to the tips of my fingers, each about a foot and a half long. And there was two cats in there just about a foot long. And there was a cat in there—I'm not goin to tell about the weight, there was nothin said about the weight, but there was a catfish in there that measured six inches across the top of his head. That catfish woulda weighed twenty-odd pounds—showin me what my basket had done for him.

He told me, “Nate, take these fish back to camp and clean em. Tell the cooks up there”—men cooks—“tell em that I said they should give you a bucket and salt to salt em down after you dress em.”

I went on up there to the back of the dinin room and told the two cooks what Captain Springer said. They gived me buckets, gived me salt—just fixed everything clear for me to clean em. After awhile, I looked around there, just as I set my buckets down and filled em with water, here come old Captain Castle, old warden.
He walked up there to the kitchen department, poked his head around: “What are you doin here with all this damn mess back of my dinin room? Where'd these damn fish come from?”

I said, “Captain Springer told me to bring em here and clean em, sir.”

“Goddamnit, get em up from here and take em down yonder to the wash house.”

Well, there was two buckets of water and all them fish there for me to skin and clean and everything—my knives, pliers. I had to get em together and needed time to move. He come right back at me, “Get them goddamn things out from here and get em over yonder to that wash house.”

I looked up at him, I said, “I reckon you'll give me time.”

Didn't say another word. Them three white men that was workin over the prisoners there didn't like him. Well, he had never bothered me until then, and he commenced a doggin me, cussin over me so.

I picked up them fish and carried em to the wash house. Then I took my pliers and skinned every one of em, little, big, and all. And when I got through dressin em, it took a couple of common foot tubs to hold em. I asked Mr. Springer, “Captain, do you want me to save the heads too?”

“No, I don't care nothin bout the heads.”

So I gived all five of them heads to the wash house men—two little heads, two big heads, and that overgrown head. And they told me they had all they could eat and liked to not eat that much—off of fish heads now, and when I caught fish at home I throwed the heads away.

So that evenin I cleaned the fish I went back and told Captain Springer how the warden talked to me about it. He said, “I don't expect no more of him. He's a damned old sonofabitch, anyhow.”

Well, Captain Castle wouldn't let em cook them fish for supper—he was contrary as the devil; he wouldn't let em cook them fish for supper and they was nice, fresh fish. Wouldn't let em cook em for breakfast that next mornin; wouldn't let em cook em for dinner—waited till the
next
mornin, let em cook em then. And they was as good a fish as ever I et in my life. Fed everybody at that camp. When they did fry them fish for breakfast, Captain Springer—see, them white men that was workin over them prisoners, they et there too. Boarded there, and there was four or five of em and none of
em had no use for old man Frank Castle. They just stayed on at that road camp workin for the state—the state was payin em. All right. Captain Springer sent me a small waiter bout as big as a plate, just piled it up with fish, fried fish, catfish. Talk about eatin fish! I was used to that, too, because I caught fish that way for my people when I was at home. I told Captain Springer when I got a chance, “Captain Springer, you overdone it. I couldn't eat all the fish you sent my way. I gived some to the other boys and it was all they could do to eat it.”

He laughed and talked with me like free men will do. Told me in my ear, “Wasn't they nice fish, though, wasn't they nice fish?”

Well, they trucked me out of Wilcox County and assigned me to Wetumpka, women's prison, and I made some fish baskets there. Took em out and put em in the Coosa River. But somebody stole em and I didn't catch a fish for ten years.

O
NE
day there at Wilcox County, road camp, a fellow died—they called him Blue, dark, dark colored fellow, a young fellow too. I helped to bury him. Took men out from Captain Springer's squad and Captain MacGinnes's—the dog man, he looked after the dogs and kept a squad. They used dogs to track them prisoners down if they runned and he was the dog man. I didn't know the man before and I knowed too much about him when I become acquainted with his heart by watchin him close that day.

So, this fellow died; they called him Blue and he died. They set his body out by the wash house for a day or better and one mornin, Captain Springer and this fellow MacGinnes, they taken some men out of each one of em's squad, mixed em up and sent em off on a Reo truck, brand new Reo truck, and we hauled that fellow about ten miles. And we got him out at a old cemetery, a brief place, and we buried him.

And looked like we never was goin to get to that cemetery. And when we got there—it was a long ways off the highway, somethin like two or three miles back—them boss men gived them prisoners orders to jump in at a certain place there and dig that grave. Well, they hammer-hacked and they hammer-hacked but it didn't take all day. Captain Springer carried me because I was his water boy; I didn't have to dig nary a lick, just toted water to the boys—and that wasn't very much needed—and standin around lookin at em.

Captain MacGinnes was givin the orders. Captain Springer, he was a pretty nice little white fellow, he was standin about, smokin his pipe and lookin at the boys diggin the grave. And him and Captain MacGinnes talked a great deal. And I was there lookin on.

Captain MacGinnes told them boys diggin the grave, “Don't stop until you get it way down.” Wouldn't hardly stop at six foot deep. “Put him on down there, dig him on down, dig him on down so he can't come back.” He went on ridiculous—“so he can't come back.”

I never seed a person buried so deep in my life. Them boys went on down and Captain MacGinnes stood over em, cussin all the time. Well, when they got the grave dug, he jumped up and helped let Blue down in there. Captain Springer was just standin lookin on. And Captain MacGinnes went on ridiculous and scandalous. After awhile, Captain Springer told Captain MacGinnes, “I see that Nate don't like this way of buryin a man.” Well, I wouldn't like it to save my life, but what did I have to do with it? Captain Springer spoke them words for me—and blessed God, Captain MacGinnes got a hold of the rope and helped let Blue down. Me standin there lookin. He got in there and helped let him down. He looked at me, wouldn't say nothin. And I didn't say a word to him. I was under Captain Springer, not Captain MacGinnes.

I got to where I don't love to go to buryins nohow, because when I was a boy comin along way back yonder years ago, I seed em put the corpse in a box, in a coffin, and I seed a many a one put in a homemade coffin, set it in the ground, put a few planks over it and throw the dirt in there on it. Well, that always seemed to me like throwin a person's body away. I disliked it and I've seen some buried that way since these vaults has become stylish—to bury a person in a vault. And I'm so afraid every time I go to a burial that I'll see em bury em that old fashioned way. I just got to where I hated that so bad I didn't want to go to no more burials.

T
HAT
Wilcox County road camp was a new prison outlet. They sent twenty-five men there from every camp that already had a crowd of men, to make up a number there. I was one of the twenty-five men sent from Spignor to Wilcox County. Then they transferred me to Wetumpka. That was a straight women's prison but they kept men there for plowin. About twenty-odd men is as much as they
kept—one plow squad, all colored men. And all the colored men, practically, was plowin. They had some white men there—flunkies and carpenters and shop boys.

Harry Payne, head warden from Kilby prison, come to Wilcox County hisself to pick out a crew for Wetumpka. Captain Castle had every prisoner in his charge to line up out there in the yard. The line stretched several hundred feet and I was about at the center. Captain Payne overlooked all these men ahead of me and hit me the first man—you know, the looks of some people suits other people. I was almost fifty years old at that time, but I was fit: I weren't too stout and I was hard as bone. He come to me and looked me over. Asked my name and I told him; asked me how long I'd been in prison, I told him. Didn't ask me what I was there for—he mighta knowed after he got my name but I didn't say nothin bout that.

Well, he went on to take all the names that it took to please him—took the names of twenty-five men for plow hands at Wetumpka. I was the first man he called and I purred like a cat when he called me. Wetumpka prison was close to my home, nine miles closer than Spignor, first prison they sent me to, and Spignor weren't far.

I could have plowed every day but I learnt when I got to Wetumpka they weren't after me for plowin, they had younger men to put behind the plow. I weren't nothin but a water boy there for three years and a basketmaker after that. I toted two small buckets—just one squad of men I had to tote water for—nary a bucket weren't no bigger than a house bucket.

I couldn't have asked for better quarters. The buildins was tighter, warmer, than any house ever I lived in. I stayed in two buildins in ten years—stayed in one buildin there until all the other buildins around it burned down. Numbers of buildins, numbers; didn't all get burned at the same time, but one after the other. They had two big barns while I was there and them barns burnt down too; both of em burnt down on the day shift. I was night watchin them barns at the time—

When they transferred we men to Wetumpka, they was buildin another prison department for the women up on the Hamilton road and when that was completed, they moved the women up there,
bout three quarters of a mile from the old camp. Well, at that time there weren't over two or three buildins left in that yard. And they moved we colored men out of our old quarters on what they called TB hill and put us down there in the buildin where the white women had stayed—that was a straight wood buildin, lined with glass lights all around. The buildin that the colored women had stayed in down there was mostly brick. I never stayed in a brick buildin in my life, but I fancy in my mind that a brick buildin is a more substantious buildin and has a chance to be warmer than a wood buildin. But the main difference in them buildins, I presume—you couldn't tear up a brick buildin like you could a wood buildin, no way, you couldn't tear out the walls. And the colored women, they found out, was more liable to do such a thing than the white.

They mixed no colored men up with white women—that would have been unconstitutional; mixed no white men up with white women; mixed no colored men up with colored women. But the most definite part about it, they didn't mix up the colors at all, except for the colored prisoners to have a white boss. Had no colored bosses, none whatever.

I quickly found out that them officers would believe what I said, by the way I conducted myself. And I commenced tellin stories for the boys, my fellow prisoners, recommendin em to the officers. Stayed straight myself, gived em no trouble, made a record that after several years I could come home on weekend parole or go anywheres else—they wouldn't have to lose a minute by me.

Didn't make no difference what happened out in that field or nowhere they knowed that I was around. To my surprise, they'd tell me to come into the office and they would ask me about some incident that been reported to em, and I caught on that I could cool the water. “Nate.” “Yes sir, Captain.” “Where was you when so-and-so-and-so, when that was goin on?” “I was there, Captain, I was there.” “Well, did So-and-so do so-and-so-and-so?” Question me as far as they wanted to question me; and they tried me several different times, several different ways, and I come up with the truth. And the truth I told em never hurt nobody—that was my purpose.

One day, I told the boss man out in the field that I needed a new bucket. I said, “Captain, I need a bucket that won't leak. One of the buckets I'm totin has done got a hole in it and I can't get
from where I get my water out to the boys in the field without losin half of it. The other bucket's standin up good. But that one bucket, it don't do no good to tote it; I need another one, Captain.”

He said, “The deputy warden will give you a bucket, Nate, ask him.”

I walked in the office the next mornin—the head warden's office and the deputy warden's office was joinin. And who was the deputy warden? Captain Homer Evans, first man I ever done a day's work under in the field at Spignor—when they transferred me from Wilcox County to Wetumpka, he was there as the deputy warden. I learnt that Captain Evans done married Captain Harry Payne's sister, the head warden at Kilby,'s sister.

I walked into the front of the hallway, stopped and said, “Captain Evans.”

“What is it, Nate?”

He knowed my voice, he had me cased good. I told him what I wanted. So he jumped out the back door and went down in the women's yard where the supply house was, got the bucket, brought it back, handed it to me—the head warden was sittin in his office listenin to everything we said. His office door was open but I didn't know he was in there.

I said, “Thank you for the bucket, Captain.”

Captain Carter—Captain Henry Carter from Scottsboro, head warden—he heard me thank Captain Evans and just as I turned and started out, he called me, “Nate.”