All God's Dangers (85 page)

I said, “Cousin Otis, what I want to find out—” Now Ty had told me that Otis was out early before good daylight and Ty said, “He'll tell you hisself what he seed.”

I said, “Have you seen Malcolm Malone pass here any time early until up in the mornin?”

He said, “Yeah, Cousin Nate, I seed Malcolm Malone go through here this mornin.”

I said, “As good as you seed him, did you see what he had around his buggy?”

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “What did he have, as good as you could see?”

He said, “Well, that horse he was drivin was trottin when he come by here. I happened to look behind his buggy and he had a big dog tied behind the buggy to the back axle. I don't know whether it was a dog or a bitch, but it was a big hound, hound dog.”

I had the dope then—black and tan hound, he said. I said, “That's all I wanted. You seed him with that dog tied to the back of his buggy.”

Well, I knowed what dog it was. I said, “Cousin Ty, if we can, I reckon, me and Cousin Malcolm will just have to spend the night with you.”

“That's all right, Cousin Nate, that's all right; glad to have you.”

My wife and children didn't know where I was; Malcolm's wife and children didn't know where he was. I didn't make no practice of leavin my wife and children at night, but she knowed what I was off for. Of course, she mighta thought that I went off and got hurt some way. If I had, somebody woulda let her know, because everybody between there and Apafalya, all in below Apafalya where the dog was, knowed me, knowed her.

So we got up the next mornin, Monday mornin; I drove back over to Malcolm Malone's—still aint come, still aint come. His wife was there but he still aint come. All right. I said, “Well, Cousin
Malcolm, I'm goin to catch that dog.” Had that warrant from the justice of the peace in my pocket orderin him to deliver that dog. I told Malcolm, “I'm goin to travel till I meet him. Only way I can miss him, if he takes a roundabout route toward Beaufort, then comes down this way on one of them branch roads. But if he stays on this road, and I expect he will, I'll meet him this mornin.”

Drove along then in the neighborhood of Apafalya to where Malcolm's mother lived, on that road, Aunt Caroline Todd. Malcolm's daddy was dead at that time, Uncle Joe Todd. Drove up in her yard and stopped—it was cold that mornin. Went around the back of the buggy and pulled out my tie halter and I snapped one snap to the mule's bit and throwed the other one around her neck and snapped it. Hitched her to the hitchin post; she couldn't a broke that to save her life. She was a mule—if a stranger walked up to her she would snort and swing back. And she didn't allow nobody to help me take her out from a buggy or wagon. She'd look at em and snort if they'd go to foolin around with her, unhitchin traces. Had a young fellow one time walk up to me at Elam Baptist Church to help me take her out of the buggy. He had a old parasol and he clamped it between his arms and his body, walked up there and unhitched the traces—that mule lookin back at him. She said, “Hauggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” He looked at me, said, “What's the matter with her, Mr. Shaw?” I said, “You just better get away. I hate to tell you that, you might think I don't want you to help me. Clear away from her; if you stay here she's liable to bust out of these shafts before she's took out.” She was a cat—I could do anything with her, that Mattie mule of mine. First mule I ever bought out of the drove. Had never had a bridle on her when I bought her. She was a peach for a mule. Kept her eleven years until I lost her—

So, we walked in Malcolm's mother's house and stayed there a long time, warmin, waitin on Mr. Malone to come by. And it's very well we didn't wait no longer than we did. I decided we done got warm enough—we walked out and just as I got my mule untied, I looked up the road and seed Mr. Malone. I knowed his horse and all. I quickly tied that mule back and by the time I got her tied, he was past. He had that old buggy whip out and wavin it over the little old horse, tryin to get her up off the ground. I just took off down the road behind him, hollerin at him. He drove on a couple of hundred feet before I could stop him.

“Hold up, Mr. Malone, hold up, hold up.” And wavin my arms at him. I kept runnin behind him doin that and he eventually pulled down on that little old horse and stopped. Small horse but that horse was gettin up. And he had a little girl on the buggy with him; weren't his girl, some of his kinfoiks' little girl. I just run around there and said, “Mr. Malone, I got a paper here for you.”

Took it out of my inside coat pocket and handed it to him. I was wearin a dress coat, one of my Sunday coats. He took the paper and looked over it. “Who is Mr. Kirkland?”

I said, “Mr. Kirkland is a justice of the peace. That's his name right on that paper.”

He said, “Yeah, I see his name, Kirkland, but what about this paper? I can't read it all good.”

I said, “Well, you just look at it—” Made out like he couldn't read it—I couldn't read it—and if he could or he couldn't he knowed what it said.

All right. The little girl said, “Let me see it.” She took it and read it but she hushed her mouth and wouldn't say nothin.

I said, “Well, however, Mr. Malone, you can understand that paper good enough to let you know what's to it. Furthermore, I'll tell you this much: I was given orders to tell you that whenever I deliver this paper, you must deliver my dog at once, and if you don't, somethin else will have to be done.”

He said, “I don't know how I can get that dog now.”

I said, “Well, that's your job, Mr. Malone.”

He done stashed that dog out somewhere in that country the other side of Apafalya. Might have sold the dog. I said, “If you don't deliver that dog at once like it say for you to do on that paper—I'll give you time to deliver that dog if it's this evenin. I was gived orders to return to the justice of the peace at once if you didn't release the dog.”

He got stirred up then. He seed that paper meant to throw that dog off from him. He said, “Meet me up there at Zion at two o'clock this evenin—” I lived only about two miles from Zion.

I said, “I don't see how I can—but I will agree to meet you up there.”

He said, “I'll have your dog there at two o'clock but you just keep this thing quiet, hear? Don't let nobody know you served this paper on me.”

So, right after dinner time, Wadkin Todd's boy Conrad got on
the buggy with me and we drove to Zion, down on the Calusa-Apafalya road, right the other side of Two Forks, up there at the white folks' church. Stopped my mule and buggy, stood there and waited. I didn't have no further time to lose about the dog. And two o'clock on the dot, Malcolm Malone come trottin down the road with that dog tied to the back axle of his buggy. Stopped his buggy when he got up to me, got out, went around there and untied the dog. I had a rope of my own to put on her. He said, “I sure did want a couple of puppies from this bitch. Will you turn her and raise me a couple of puppies?”

Told him, “We'll see what she bears, Mr. Malone.” He'd a been better off lookin for puppies from a cow—I don't remember ever seein that white man since. Crawled back on his buggy and drove away from there.

There's some things can happen between a colored man and a white man, some of these laws won't hold back off of it. White man could shoot a colored man and wouldn't be a thing done to him; but if he taken a colored man's dog, the laws would jump down his throat.

O
NE
day, one night, while I was livin on the Jenks place, a white bunch—you never know how many it was—got on a car and stopped at Rachel's and shot in the house. She was settin by the window that night; weren't nobody there but her at the time. And if she had been settin closer to the window than she was, someway, they'd a shot her. Shot through the window and into the walls of that house. Brought up a great flustration—found out who done it, caught em, and their mothers and fathers runned up and begged my daughter to not have nothin done about it, and the way it runned, nothin was done. They was doin that devilment all over the country here, same crowd, and it brought up great dangers. And it was understood and known well, they didn't bother nobody but colored folks.

They come down there to my house one night before they ever bothered Rachel. I weren't thinkin bout such a thing—and they throwed a rock up on my veranda. The little house was standin right beside the road; they stopped on their car and throwed a rock up there as big as my fist—BOOM—against the house. Then they took off.

Well, after that, I set out there on that veranda many a night till late hours with my gun across my lap, lookin for em. They never did come back, long as I watched. And so, the insurance man come by one day, fellow by the name of Skinner, from Tuskegee; I had the rock, laid it up and showed it to him, told him bout the dangerous situation in this settlement. I heard over the television just such things was happenin in the northern states. They messed up Chicago in particular at that time. Well, niggers here was scared as the devil bout this rock chunkin, bottle chunkin, shootin in people's houses.

I told him, “I'm goin to shoot, if I don't shoot nothin but the car; if they ever come here again that way I'm goin to be hid around here and when they stop and one of em chunks his rock, my gun goin to fire.”

And here's what he told me—I made little of him for that. He was a insurance man, white man, he didn't like my talk and he just went on away from there when he got through with his insurance business. I showed him the rock and told him, “It has to be stopped. One way or another somebody's goin to get killed. This got to be broke up and I'm goin to be in the crowd that breaks it up, too.” He standin there listenin at me. I said, “They aint botherin nobody but the colored people. They don't bother the white people at all.”

He went on to give me some advice about it, told me I shouldn't make too much out of very little. I told him, “Yes, it's very little to a white man, anything happens to a colored person it's very little, been that way since I can remember. If they'd a been chunkin at white folks' houses thataway there'd a been somethin done about it.”

He told me what he'd a done if he coulda caught em. I said, “Yes sir, if you coulda caught em. But you done what the rest of em done—nothin.”

He didn't like that talk much. He said, “Well—”

I told him I was goin to shoot the car if I didn't shoot nobody, “Then everybody will know who they is.” Right at that particular time, didn't know what crowd it was.

He said, “Well, if you shoot, don't shoot in the car. Shoot
over
the car.”

I said, “Well, if they chunkin rocks
into
houses I'm goin to shoot into the car—if I get the chance. You know if they'd bothered
white folks, just taken houses as they come, they'd a caught em in spite of redemption. They couldn't a got away for runnin.”

He dropped his head on that.

I boiled to him that mornin—all it had to be was a Negro's house and you'd better keep your head down. You take this road, up the road a little piece it turns and carries you right by Mr. Willy Lee Kirkland's—it's thick-settled through there, white and colored. And there's a old schoolhouse over there in the Byrd settlement—that goes in the name of the Byrd settlement with people that knows—settin to the right of the road after you get up that long hill. And there's a little old block house sets to the left, right on top of that hill; colored gal killed her daddy there bout six or seven years ago, shot him—it's supposed, they said—shot him five times. Well, just beyond that house there's that schoolhouse, and the white crowd went by there one night and shot the windows out and come mighty nigh shootin the woman that was in there, livin there, done took the little old schoolhouse over for a dwellin house, just a man and his wife, colored people. And they shot in the window and shot the window out and come mighty nigh shootin that woman—nothin done about it, nothin. If that was a colored crowd of boys done that to a white people's house, they'd a put em
under
the penitentiary; there's no doubts and no different thoughts to be had about it.

I was born real poor, I had nothin. And what I accumulated in the world, one man worked harder than ary other to take it away from me. And right before he died, Mr. Watson come by my house on the Jenks place. I wasn't there that day—Josie said that another white gentleman drove up there with him; she didn't know who he was. And Mr. Watson inquired about me, but he didn't never get to the point of his comin. But he come there for a purpose of some kind, surely. He didn't just drive out there to
see
me.

I learnt from other people that at that period he'd been goin around to see different ones that had ever had dealins with him in their lives. He even put out a report that he wanted to see one of Simon Travis's boys, said he had somethin to tell him. And he talked to these colored people like he wanted to make some sort of apology. I can't read a man's mind, but it appeared to me like this: he
wanted to make an oath and be acknowledged for his past dealins with em—he seed the end of his days comin near. But he never come back to my house and he never put the proposition to me.

This here woman I got now, her daddy, Simon Travis, he used to live with Mr. Watson and he was absolutely skinned by the man—I knowed it. And also, her first husband, Johnny B Todd, he was livin on one of Mr. Watson's places when he died. Worked several years for the man, made good crops too—Watson got it all. So he knowed Josie, had to, as well as he knowed any colored lady.

Accordin to God's words under the ledger of the Bible, his soul cannot be at rest, aint no way for it. He used to have a good time here, but he's catchin hell today. I don't say he's
gone
to hell, definitely; I don't say it with the breath of my body. I just look back at God's words: his soul is required in torment today. I aint goin to tell no lie on Lester Watson; he's dead and gone wherever God and Christ intends for him to be.