Stories of Erskine Caldwell (27 page)

The little black ant on Daddy’s nose crawled up to his forehead and stopped there to look at something.

“We must go into the house now,” Mother said, taking Elizabeth and Robert by the hands. “I want both of you to go to the playroom and stay there until I call you. Look at the pictures in your books, or build something with your blocks, but do not look out of the window until I call you. Run along now, Robert and Elizabeth. Mother will be busy for a long time.”

They went into the house and Mother waited at the bottom of the stairs while they were going up to the playroom. She leaned against the newel post, holding close to her breast the shoe that Daddy had kicked off when he was the wild horse.

“It’s a shame to stay indoors when it’s so nice out there,” Robert said. “All the red leaves will soon be gone.”

“Will you call us the minute Daddy wakes up, Mother’?” Elizabeth asked. “Please do. We wish to finish playing horse — and we have some new games to play, too.”

“Yes,” Mother said, “I’ll call you.”

(First published in
Pagany
)

A
QUARTER OF A
mile down the river the partly devoured carcasses of five or six mules that had been killed during the past two weeks by the heat and overwork at the sawmill, lay rotting in the midafternoon sun. Of the hundred or more buzzards hovering around the flesh, some were perched drowsily on the cypress stumps, and some were strutting aimlessly over the cleared ground. Every few minutes one of the buzzards, with a sound like wagon-rumble on a wooden bridge, beat the sultry air with its wings and pecked and clawed at the decaying flesh. Dozens of the vultures glided overhead hour after hour in monotonous circles.

The breeze that had been coming up the river since early that morning shifted to the east and the full stench of sun-rotted muleflesh settled over the swamp. The July sun blazed over the earth and shriveled the grass and weeds until they were as dry as crisp autumn leaves. A cloud of dense black smoke blew over from the other side of the river when somebody threw an armful of fat pine on the fire under the moonshine still.

Jake blew his nose on the ground and asked Red for a smoke. Red gave him a cigarette.

“What time’s it now, Red?”

Red took his watch from his overalls pocket and showed it to Jake.

“Looks to me like it’s about three o’clock,” he told Red.

Red jerked the pump out of the dust and kicked at the punctured tire. The air escaped just as fast as he could pump it in. There was nothing in the old car to patch the tube with.

Jake spat at the Negro’s head on the running board and grabbed Red’s arm.

“That nigger’s stinkin’ worse than them mules, Red. Let’s run that tire flat so we can git to town and git shed of him. I don’t like to waste time around that smell.”

Red was open to any suggestion. The sweat had been running down his face and over his chest and wetting his breeches. He had been pumping for half an hour trying to get some air into the tire. It had been flat when they left the sawmill.

Jake cranked up the engine and they got in and started up the road towards town. It was three miles to town from the sawmill.

The old automobile rattled up the road through the deep yellow dust. The sun was so hot it made the air feel like steam when it was breathed into the lungs. Most of the water had leaked from the radiator, and the engine knocked like ten-pound hammers on an anvil. Red did not care about the noise as long as he could get where he was going.

Half a mile up the road was Hog Creek. When they got to the top of the hill Red shut off the engine. The car rolled down to the creek and stopped on the bridge.

“Git some water for the radiator, Jake,” Red said. He reached in the back seat and pulled out a tin can for Jake to carry the water in.

Jake crawled out of the car and stretched his arm and legs. He wiped the sweat off his face with his shirttail.

“Don’t hurry me,” Jake said, leaning against the car. “Ain’t no hurry for nothin’.”

Red got tired holding the can. He threw it at Jake. Jake dodged it and the can rolled off the bridge down into the creek. Red propped his feet on the windshield and got ready to take a nap while Jake was going for the water.

Jake walked around to the other side of the car and looked at the Negro. The hot sun had swollen the lips until they curled over and touched the nose and chin. The Negro had tripped up that morning when he tried to get out of the way of a falling cypress tree.

“What’s this nigger’s name?” he asked Red.

“Jim somethin’,” Red grunted, trying to sleep.

Jake turned the head over with his foot so he could see the face. He happened to think that he might have known him.

“God Almighty!” he said, shaking Red by the arm. “Hand me that monkey wrench quick, Red.”

Red lifted up the back seat and found the monkey wrench. He got out and handed it to Jake.

“What’s the matter, Jake? What’s the matter with the nigger?”

Jake picked up a stick and pushed back the Negro’s lips.

“Look at them gold teeth, Red,” he pointed.

Red squatted beside the running board and tried to count the gold teeth.

“Here, Red, you take this stick and hold his mouth open while I knock off that gold.”

Red took the stick and pushed the lips away from the teeth. Jake choked the monkey wrench halfway and tapped on the first tooth. He had to hit it about six or seven times before it broke off and fell on the bridge. Red picked it up and rubbed the dirt off on his overalls.

“How much is it worth, Jake?” he asked, bouncing the tooth in the palm of his hand trying to feel the weight.

“About two dollars,” Jake said. “Maybe more.”

Jake took the tooth and weighed it in his hand.

“Hold his mouth open and let me knock out the rest of them,” Jake said. He picked up the monkey wrench and choked it halfway. “There’s about three or four more, looks like to me.”

Red pushed the Negro’s lips away from the teeth while Jake hammered away at the gold. The sun had made the teeth so hot they burned his fingers when he picked them off the bridge.

“You keep two and give me three,” Red said. “It’s my car we’re totin’ him to town in.”

“Like hell I will,” Jake said. “I found them, didn’t I
?
Well, I got the right to keep three myself if I want to.”

Red jerked the monkey wrench off the running board and socked Jake on the head with it. The blow was only hard enough to stun him. Jake reeled around on the bridge like he was dead drunk and fell against the radiator. Red followed him up and socked him again. A ball-of skin and hair fell in the dust. He took all the gold teeth and put them into his overalls pocket. Jake was knocked out cold. Red shook him and kicked him, but Jake didn’t move. Red dragged him around to the back seat and threw him inside and shut the door. Then he cranked up the car and started to town. The tire that was punctured had dropped off the wheel somewhere down the road and there was nothing left except the rim to ride on.

Red had gone a little over a mile from the bridge when Jake came to himself and sat up on the back seat. He was still a little dizzy, but he knew what he was doing.

“Hold on a minute, Red,” he shouted. “Stop this automobile.”

Red shut off the engine and the car rolled to a stop. He got out in the road.

“What you want now, Jake?” he asked him.

“Look, Red,” he pointed across the cotton field beside the road. “Look what’s yonder, Red.”

A mulatto girl was chopping cotton about twenty rows from the road. Red started across the field after her before Jake could get out. They stumbled over the cotton rows kicking up the plants with every step.

Jake caught up with Red before they reached the girl. When they were only two rows away, she dropped her hoe and started running towards the woods.

“Hey, there!” Jake shouted. “Don’t you run off!”

He picked up a heavy sun-baked clod and heaved it at her as hard as he could. She turned around and tried to dodge it; but she could not get out of the way in time, and it struck her full on the forehead.

Red got to her first. The girl rubbed her head and tried to get up. He pushed her down again.

Jake came running up. He tried to kick her dress above her waist with his foot.

“Wait a minute,” Red said. He shoved Jake off his feet. “I got here first.”

“That don’t cut no ice with me,” Jake said. He started for Red and butted him down. Then he stood over him and tried to stomp Red’s head with his heels.

Red got away and picked up the girl’s hoe and swung it with all his might at Jake’s head. The sharp blade caught Jake on the right side of his head and sliced his ear off close to his face. Jake fell back and felt his face and looked at the ear on the ground.

Red turned around to grab the girl, but she was gone. She was nowhere in sight.

“Come on, Jake,” he said. “She run off. Let’s git to town and dump that nigger. I want ’bout a dozen good stiff drinks. I don’t work all week and let payday git by without tankin’ up good and plenty.”

Jake tore one of the sleeves out of his shirt and made a bandage to tie around his head. It did not bleed so much after that.

Red went back to the car and waited for Jake. The dead Negro on the running board was a hell of a lot of trouble. If it had not been for him, the girl would not have got scared and run away.

They got into the car again and started to town. They had to get to the undertaker’s before six o’clock, because he closed up at that time; and they did not want to have to carry the dead Negro around with them all day Sunday.

“What time’s it now, Red?” Jake asked him.

Red pulled out his watch and showed it to Jake.

“Looks like it’s about five o’clock,” Jake told him.

Red put the watch back into his overalls pocket.

It was about a mile and a half to town yet, and there was a black cloud coming up like there might be a big thunderstorm. The old car had got hot again because they did not get the water at Hog Creek, and the engine was knocking so hard it could be heard half a mile away.

Suddenly the storm broke overhead and the water came down in bucketfuls. There was no place to stop where they could get out of the rain and there was no top on the car. Red opened the throttle as wide as it would go and tried to get to town in a hurry. The rain cooled the engine and made the car run faster.

When they got to the edge of town, the old car was running faster than it ever had. The rain came down harder and harder all the time. It was a cloudburst, all right.

Then suddenly one of the cylinders went dead, and the machine slowed down a little. In a minute two more of the cylinders went dead at the same time, and the car could barely move on the one that was left. The rain would drown that one out, too, in a little while.

The car went as far as the poolroom and stopped dead. All the cylinders were full of water.

“Git out, Red,” Jake shouted. “I’ll bet you a quart of corn I can beat you five games of pool.”

Red was right behind Jake. The rain had soaked every thread of their clothes.

The men in the poolroom asked Jake and Red where they got the Negro and what they were going to do with him.

“We’re takin’ him to the undertaker’s when the shower’s over,” Red said. “He got tripped up down at the sawmill this mornin’. Right on payday, too.”

Some of the hounds that were not too lazy went out in the rain and smelled the Negro on the running board.

One of the men told Jake he had better go to the drugstore and have his head fixed. Jake said he couldn’t be bothered.

Jake beat Red the first four games, and then Red wanted to bet two quarts that he could win the last game. He laid a ragged five-dollar bill on the table, for a side bet. Jake covered that with a bill that was even more ragged.

Red had the break on the fifth game. He slammed away with his stick and lucked the eleven ball, the fifteen, the nine, and the four ball.

“Hell,” Jake said, “I’ll spot you that thirty-nine and beat you.” He chalked his stick and got ready to make a run, after Red missed his next shot. “All I want is one good shot and I’ll make game before I stop runnin’ them. We shoot pool where I come from.”

Jake made the one, two, three, and lucked the twelve ball. He chalked his cue again and got ready to run the five ball in.

Just as he was tapping the cue ball somebody on the other side of the table started talking out loud.

“He ain’t no pool shot,” the man laughed. “I bet he don’t make that five ball.”

Jake missed.

Before anybody knew what was happening, Jake had swung the leaded butt-end of his cue stick at the man’s head with all his might. The man fell against another table and struck his head on a sharp-edged spittoon. A four-inch gash had been opened on his head by the stick, and blood was running through a crack in the floor.

“I’ll teach these smart guys how to talk when I’m shootin’ pool,” Jake said. “I bet he don’t open his trap like that no more.”

The man was carried down to the doctor’s office to get his head sewed up.

Red took two shots and made game. Jake was ready to pay off.

They went out the back door and got the corn in a half-gallon jug.

Jake took half a dozen swallows and handed the jug over to Red, Red drank till the jug was half full. Then they went back into the poolroom to shoot some more pool.

A man came running in from the street and told Jake and Red the marshal was outside waiting to see them.

“What does he want now?” Red asked him.

“He says he wants you-all to tote that nigger down to the undertaker’s before he stinks the whole town up.”

Jake took another half-dozen swallows out of the jug and handed it over to Red.

“Say,” Jake said, falling against one of the tables, “you go tell that marshal that I said for him to take a long runnin’ start and jump to hell. — Me and Red’s shootin’ pool!”

(First published in
American Earth
)

“W
HAT WAS IT?”
Virginia remembered having said after dinner. “What was it we used to tell each other in a half-serious manner? Was it that when the time comes to drop the pilot we won’t cry on his shoulder?”