Stories of Erskine Caldwell (45 page)

“Sam heard him, too,” Daisy said, standing beside Hod and trembling as if she would fall apart. “Sam’s running away from him.”

“Heard what — heard who! What’s the matter with you, Daisy?”

Daisy held Hod tighter, looking out across the broom sedge. Hod pushed her away and walked out into the back yard. He stood there only a minute before the sound of Sam’s pounding feet on the hard white sand grew louder and louder. Sam turned the corner of the house a second later, running even faster than he had before. His eyes were all white by that time, and it looked as if his hair had grown several inches since Hod had last seen him.

Hod reached out and caught Sam’s jumper. There was a ripping sound, and Hod looked down to find that he was holding a piece of Sam’s overall. Sam was around the house out of sight before Hod could yell at him to stop and come back.

“That nigger is scared of something,” Hod said, looking in the doorway at Daisy.

“Sam heard him,” Daisy said, trembling.

Hod ran to Daisy and put both hands on her shoulders and shook her violently.

“Heard who!” he yelled at her. “If you don’t tell me who it was around here calling you, I’ll choke the life out of you. Who was around here calling you? If I catch him, I’ll kill him so quick —”

“You’re choking me, Hod!” Daisy screamed. “Let me loose! I don’t know who it was — honest to God, I don’t know who it was, Hod!”

Hod released her and ran out into the yard. Sam had turned and was running down the road towards the lumber mill a mile away. The town of Folger was down there. Two stores, the post office, the lumber mill, and the bank were scorching day after day in an oval of baked clay and sand. Sam was halfway to Folger by then.

“So help me!” Daisy screamed. “There he is, Hod!”

She ran into the kitchen, slamming and bolting the door.

Out behind the barn Amos Whittle, Sam’s father, was coming through the broom sedge and blackjack with his feet flying behind him so fast that they looked like the paddles on a water mill. He had both hands gripped around the end of a rope, and the rope was being jerked by the biggest, the ugliest, and the meanest-looking jack that Hod had ever seen in his whole life. The jack was loping through the broom sedge like a hoop snake, jerking Amos from side to side as if he had been the cracker on the end of a rawhide whip.

“Head him, Mr. Hod!” Amos yelled. “Head him! Please, sir, head him!”

Hod stood looking at Amos and the jack while they loped past him. He turned and watched them with mouth agape while they made a wide circle in the broom sedge and started back towards the house and barn again.

“Head him, Mr. Hod!” Amos begged. “Please, Mr. Hod, head him!”

Hod picked up a piece of mule collar and threw it at the jack’s head. The jack stopped dead in his tracks, throwing out his front feet and dragging his hind feet on the hard white sand. The animal had stopped so suddenly that Amos found himself wedged between his two hind legs.

Hod walked towards them and pulled Amos out, but Amos was up and on his feet before there was any danger of his being kicked.

“Where’d you get that jack, Amos?” Hod said.

“I don’t know where I got him, but I sure wish I’d never seen him. I been all night trying to hold him, Mr. Hod. I ain’t slept a wink, and my old woman’s taken to the tall bushes. She and the girls heard him, and they must have thought I don’t know exactly what, because they went off yelling about being scared to hear a sound like that jack makes.”

The jack walked leisurely over to the barn door and began eating some nubbins that Hod had dropped between the crib and the stalls. One ear stood straight up, and the other one lay flat on his neck. He was the meanest-looking jackass that had ever been in that part of the country. Hod had never seen anything like him before.

“Get him away from here, Amos,” Hod said. “I don’t want no jack around here.”

“Mr. Hod,” Amos said, “I wish I could get him away somewhere where I’d never see him again. I sure wish I could accommodate you, Mr. Hod. He’s the troublesomest jack I ever seen.”

“Where’d you get him, Amos? What are you doing with him, anyway?” Amos glanced at Hod, but only for a moment. He kept both eyes on the jack.

“I traded that old dollar watch of mine for him yesterday, Mr. Hod, but that jack ain’t worth even four bits to me. I don’t know what them things are made for, anyhow.”

“I’ll give you fifty cents for him,” Hod said.

“You will!” Amos shouted. “Lord mercy, Mr. Hod, give it here! I’ll sure be glad to get rid of that jack for four bits. He done drove my wife and grown girls crazy, and I don’t know what mischief he’ll be up to next. If you’ll give me fifty cents for him, I’ll sure be much obliged to you, Mr. Hod. I don’t want to have nothing more to do with that jackass.”

“I don’t want him around, either,” Hod said, turning to look through the kitchen window, “but I figure on making me some money with him. How old is that jack, Amos?”

“The man said he was three years old, but I don’t know no way of telling a jack’s age, and I don’t aim to find out.”

“He looks like he might be three or four. I’m going to buy him from you, Amos. I figure on making me a lot of money out of that jack. I don’t know any other way to make money these days. I can’t seem to get it out of the ground.”

“Sure, sure, Mr. Hod. You’re welcome to that jack. You’re mighty much welcome to him. I don’t want to have nothing more to do with no jackass. I wish now I had my watch back, but I reckon it’s stopped running by now, anyhow. It was three years old, and it never did keep accurate time for me. I’ll sure be tickled to get four bits for that jack, Mr. Hod.”

Hod counted out fifty cents in nickels and dimes and handed the money to Amos.

“Now, you’ve got to help me halter that jack, Amos,” Hod said. “Get yourself a good piece of stout rope. Plow lines won’t be no good on him.”

“I don’t know about haltering that Jack, Mr. Hod. Looks like to me he’s never been halterbroke. If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Hod, I’d just as lief go on home now. I’ve got some stovewood to chop, and I got to —”

“Wait a minute,” Hod said. “I’ll get the rope to halter him with. You go in the house and wake up Shaw. He’s in the bed asleep. You go in there and get him up and tell him to come out here and help us halter the jack. Ain’t no sense in him sleeping all morning. I’m damned tired of seeing him do it. When he comes home, he ought to get out and help do some work about the place.”

Shaw was Hod’s brother who had been at home seven or eight days on leave from the Navy. He was getting ready to go back to his ship in Norfolk in a day or two. Shaw was two years younger than Hod, and only a few years older than Daisy. Daisy was nineteen then.

I’d sure like to accommodate you, Mr. Hod,” Amos said, “but the last time you sent me in to wake up Mr. Shaw, Mr. Shaw he jumped out of bed on top of me and near about twisted my neck off. He said for me never to wake him up again as long as I live. Mr. Hod, you’d better go wake up Mr. Shaw your own self.”

Hod reached down and picked up a piece of stovewood. He walked towards Amos swinging the stick in his hand.

“I said go in the house and get him up,” Hod told Amos again. “That sailor had better stop coming here to stay in bed half the day and be all the time telling Daisy tales.”

Amos opened the kitchen door and went into the house. Hod walked towards the barn where the jack was calmly eating red nubbins by the crib door.

When Hod reached the barnyard gate, the jack lifted his head and looked at him. He had two or three nubbins of red corn in his jaws, and he stopped chewing and crunching the grains and cobs while he looked at Hod. One of the jack’s ears lay flat against the top of his head and neck, and the other one stood straight up in the air, as stiff as a cow’s horn. The jack’s ears were about fourteen or sixteen inches long, and they were as rigid as bones.

Hod tossed the piece of stovewood aside and walked to the opened gate for a piece of rope. He believed he could halter the jack by himself.

He started into the barnyard, but he had gone no farther than a few steps when boards began to fly off the side of the barn. The mare in the stall was kicking like a pump gun. One after the other, the boards flew off, the mare whinnied, and the jack stood listening to the pounding of the mare’s hooves against the pine boards.

When Hod saw what was happening to his barn, he ran towards the jack, yelling and waving his arms and trying to get him to the leeward side of the barn.

“Howie! Howie!” he yelled at the jack.

As long as the mare got wind of the jack, nothing could make her stop kicking the boards off the barn from the inside. Hod jumped at the jack, waving his arms and shouting at him.

“Howie! Howie!”

He continued throwing up his arms to scare the jack away, but the jack just turned and looked at Hod with one ear up and one ear down.

“Howie! You ugly-looking son of a bitch! Howie!”

Hod turned around to look towards the house to see if Shaw and Amos were coming. He turned just in time to see Amos jumping out the window.

“Hey there, Amos!” Hod yelled. “Where’s Shaw?”

“Mr. Shaw says he ain’t going to get up till he gets ready to. Mr. Shaw cussed pretty bad and made me jump out the window.”

The jack began to paw the ground. Hard clods of stableyard sand and manure flew behind him in all directions. Hod yelled at him again.

“Howie! Howie! You flop-eared bastard!”

The jack stopped and turned his head to look at Amos on the other side of the fence.

“Mr. Hod,” Amos said, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to have a word with you.”

Hod yelled at Amos and at the jack at the same time.

“Mr. Hod,” Amos said, “if I don’t go home now and chop that stove-wood, me and my folks won’t have no dinner at all.”

“Come back here!” Hod shouted at him.

Amos came as far as the gate, but he would not come any farther.

Suddenly the jack lifted his head high in the air and brayed. It sounded as if someone were blowing a trumpet in the ear.

The bray had no more than died out when the mare began pounding the boards with both hind hooves, the boards flying off the side of the barn faster than Hod could count them. He turned and looked to see what Amos was doing, and over his head he saw Daisy at the window. She looked as if she had completely lost her mind.

The jack brayed again, louder than ever, and then he leaped for the open barnyard gate. Hod threw the rope at him, but the rope missed him by six feet. The jack was through the gate and out around the house faster than Hod could yell. Amos stood as if his legs had been fence posts four feet deep in the ground.

The jack stopped at the open bedroom window, turned his head towards the house, and brayed as if he were calling all the mares in the entire county. Daisy ran to the window and looked out, and when she saw the jack no more than arm’s length from her, she screamed and fell backward on the floor.

“Head him, Amos! Head him!” Hod yelled, running towards the jack.

Amos’s feet were more than ever like fence posts. He was shaking like a tumbleweed, but his legs and feet were as stiff as if they had been set in concrete.

“Where in hell is that God damn sailor!” Hod yelled. “Why in hell don’t he get up and help me some around here! If I had the time now, I’d go in there with a piece of cordwood and break every bone in his head. The son of a bitch comes home here on leave once a year and lays up in bed all day and stays out all night running after women. If that seagoing son of a bitch comes here again, I’ll kill him!”

“Yonder goes your jack, Mr. Hod,” Amos said.

Daisy stuck her head out of the window again. She was looking to see where the jack was, and she did not look at Hod. She was standing there pulling at herself, and getting more wild-eyed every second. She disappeared from sight as quickly as she had first appeared.

“Come on, you black bastard,” Hod said; “let’s go after him. I ought to pick up a stick and break your neck for bringing that God damn jack here to raise the devil. He’s got the mare kicking down the barn, and Daisy is in there acting crazy as hell.”

They started out across the broom sedge after the loping jack. The jack was headed for Folger, a mile away.

“If I ever get my hands on that jack, I’ll twist his neck till it looks like a corkscrew,” Hod panted, running and leaping over the yellow broom sedge. “Ain’t no female safe around a sailor or a jack, and here I am running off after one, and leaving the other in the house.”

They lost sight of the jackass in a short while. The beast had begun to circle the town, and he was now headed down the side of the railroad tracks behind the row of Negro cabins. They soon saw him again, though, when the jack slowed down at a pasture where some horses were grazing.

A hundred yards from the cabins they had to run down into a gully. Just as they were crawling up the other side, a Negro girl suddenly appeared in front of them, springing up from nowhere. She was standing waist-high in the broom sedge, and she was as naked as a pickaninny.

Hod stopped and looked at her.

“Did you see a jack?” he said to her.

“White-folks, I saw that jack, and he brayed right in my face. I just jumped up and started running. I can’t sit still when I hear a jackass bray.”

Hod started off again, but he stopped and came back to look at the girl.

“Put your clothes back on,” he said. “You’ll get raped running around in the sedge this close to town like that.”

“White-captain,” she said, “I ain’t hard to rape. I done heard that jackass bray.”

Hod turned and looked at Amos for a moment, Amos was walking around in a circle with his hands in his pockets.

“Come on,” Hod told him, breaking through the broom sedge. “Let’s get that jack, Amos.”

They started towards the pasture where the jack had stopped. When the jack saw them coming, he turned and bolted over the railroad tracks and started jogging up the far side of the right-of-way towards Folger. Hod cut across to head him off and Amos was right behind to help.

There were very few men in town at that time of day. Several storekeepers sat on Coca-Cola crates on the sidewalk under the shade of the water-oak trees, and several men were whittling white pine and chewing tobacco. The bank was open, and RB, the cashier, was standing in the door looking out across the railroad tracks and dusty street. Down at the lumber mill, the saws whined hour after hour.