The Mercy Seat (46 page)

 

 

I don't know how long we stayed in there. Wind howling. For a while you could hear sleet pecking that old wood-shingle roof. When we come out, there was a little dusting of snow on the ground. Wind had died some. The stars was out. Lodi didn't say a word to me, just picked up the lantern and hunked up his shoulders, walked off north through town. I know I got a licking from my mama when I come in the house—supper's cold on the table, fire's down, the whole rest of the family in bed. She got up when I come in, asked me where I'd been, I told her, Helping John Lodi. She said, Helping him what? I said, Finish up a new set of brake rods for Tarleton Maye's wagon; she said, My foot. She popped me a half-dozen times through that coat wadding, told me to get my hind end in the bed, but she never did tell my dad. My mama was partial to me, I know that. They all said it, and I'll allow it for a fact.

I might not would've stayed at the livery till supper much less way past midnight if my dad hadn't been gone to Brown's Prairie. I never was one to cross my dad. But look here, I'll tell you something. I don't believe none of it would've happened if my daddy hadn't been out of town. I've thought about it. I don't for the life of me believe Lodi meant to make me a rifle. He didn't have no sort of plan. It's just how life is, how you couldn't have one thing happen without what went before. Some of it's accident and some of it's intention, but one thing gets laid on another and it all keeps a-rolling from one thing to the next. But it's all tied up together, see—you don't just have this, and this, and this; you have this
because
this
because
this, even if you don't know what the because is. That's according to my reckoning, and I been watching it a long time. Like this, see: Lodi was working that wood on account of it wasn't six yet and he didn't have no regular work to get done. But see, he didn't have no regular work
because
my dad was out of town. If daddy'd been there, I bet you a hunnerd dollars there would've been somebody sitting around waiting on John Lodi to finish them a hound plate or something, storm coming or not. And if there hadn't been anybody waiting for work from him, why, my dad would've come in and told Lodi to knock off and go home. My dad wasn't a hard man. But he wasn't there to tell him, and Lodi wasn't going to take it on himself to go home half a day early, and so he had free hands and time to do something and he just did what he did.

After that night, it just laid like a secret between us. We didn't neither one need to tell it, but we was making that gun on the sly. Or anyhow, that's how I thought about it, but my dad had to know. I never come in the house before nine or ten o'clock of an evening; he'd just tell me to stoke the fire before I come to bed. Now, I'm going to estimate it took us about three weeks to make that gun. I say “us,” and you know I didn't have a fat lot to do with it, only just held the barrel tight in the rings when he was rifling it out or whatever little job he showed me how to do. I don't think it would've took that long, even allowing we had to work on it after six or way up early in the morning, except he had to whittle him a rifling guide, and that was some job, I'll tell you what. But he made every piece of it, tang bolt to cheek plate, and he knew what he was about. Of course, later I could see that the main reason he was working that slab of red oak when I come in, the truth of it, was because he knew how. That was the prettiest gun I nearly ever witnessed in my life, I don't care if it was a muzzle loader. On top of that, it was the truest. I ain't saying that just because it was mine. I learned to shoot with that gun, kept it for years and years, and I never had to freshen it out but once. Sold it to Bob Martin for forty dollars in Nineteen Thirty-six, and that was a lot of money in that time. I'd give more than that to have it back now, I can tell you. John Lodi was a powerful artist at gunmaking, same as he was at anything else. I reckon he had been nearly all his life. You don't learn that business in a minute.

Okay, now this is something I didn't know for a long time—well, half a century nearly. Mama said it when she was right near to passing over. She was sitting on the porch one morning—by that time she didn't do much of anything but set around; Daddy'd been gone sixteen years—but Mama was sitting there rocking one morning, I was coming up the front steps. I don't know where I'd been, to the post office or something, and Mama just pops up out of nowhere, she says, “Grady, you remember that gun John Lodi made you?”

Well, I did a little turn then, because I never knowed any of them knew he'd made it for me special. I thought at the time they all reckoned he'd give it to me because it wasn't a manufactured Remington or Winchester, just an old homemade gun.

She says, “You remember that?”

I says, “Well, yes, Mama, sure I do.”

She says, “You know what your dad give for that?”

I said no. My heart grabbed up a little tighter. None of them had ever mentioned anything about it. We made it. We had a secret. Me and Lodi. I never knew Dad gave him a dime.

She says, “Your dad give two dollars for that gun. John wouldn't take no more than that. What you reckon that gun'd be worth today?”

I said I couldn't imagine. I didn't want to think about it. Nearly killed me to sell it when I did, I just hated it, but me and Dorcas didn't have two red cents to rub together. You did what you had to back then. Told myself like this, said, Well, sir, you don't have a son to pass it along to anyhow, you'd just might as well. I sold it to Bob Martin for his grandson, or that's what he said.

“I bet it was worth twenty dollars,” Mama says, “if it was worth a nickel. Your dad tried to make him take ten for it, but two dollars is all he would take. Just pert near give it away, didn't he?”

I said, “Well, yes, Mama, I guess he did.”

G
ranny Phelps come to the front porch, hollered clean through to the back.

“Loveeny, you better come out here! John Lodi's just this minute shot somebody in front of Dayberry's!”

I was doing the washing. I could hear her good as anything. She was hollering all the way through the house.

“They ain't even covered him up yet!”

Little voice squeaking, seemed to me like I could nearly see her, tipping up on her tiptoes. I was plumb out by the smokehouse.

“There's kids down yonder all ever one looking at him,” she said. “Come on now. Quick!”

Well, quick as I could rinse the soap off, I went. Run down there with Edna on my hip and I'd left Jelly in the bed, I never even thought about her. I'd forgot she was home. Whole front of my apron was sopping wet with washwater, but you can't stop to think and change at a time like that. You never saw anything like it. Blood from here to yonder, half the men in town standing around waiting for somebody to do something. Ignorant things. Wasn't anything to do. The man was dead. Well, he was a white man, you could see that. They were going to have to wait for the federal marshal to come from McAlester, Choctaw law couldn't tell them what to do, though, yes, Tecumseh Moore was there. They were all there, half of Cedar, and what ones wasn't there was coming. That's how fast the news spread.

Well, we didn't know him, of course that's the first thing I thought of, but when I saw we didn't know him, I just went to trying to keep the children back. You want to be helpful. I could see those men weren't being helpful, they were just standing around. Sheriff Moore and Jim Dayberry were yonder in the stable doorway with their heads together. I didn't see John Lodi then. Sure did see the man he killed, though. He was laying on his back in the street right in front of the mercantile, and I guess John'd shot him with the shotgun, because the top of his head was blowed off. But Lord at the blood, you never saw the like, pooling in the dirt and it was still a-bubbling, worse than a stuck pig. You didn't believe he lived two seconds. Half his neck was gone.

I'll swan to my time, those men stood around, stood around, I didn't believe anybody was ever going to think to cover the man up. I was about ready to go back to the house and get Hank's tarpaulin or something, but you couldn't keep the children out of there. They'd just slip under your arm, the boys would, and edge right up where they didn't have any business, and nobody was doing one thing to stop them, and I thought, Well, I better just stay here. If I'd ever thought about Jelly, I don't guess I would've seen any of it, because I would not of let her witness such an awful scene as that. I don't know where those other children's mothers were. Oh, directly here come one or two of them, Hattie Chessley and Nan Tannehill and some of them, but they didn't shoo their children off. People act so ignorant sometimes. Well, you can see I had my hands full, what with Edna bawling and me trying to keep those kids back, and I sure didn't aim to be like the rest of them and stand around gawking at that poor man, so I did not precisely examine the body, I just heard some of them talking about John Lodi'd shot him in the back. Well, I don't know about that, but I can tell you one thing: he sure enough shot him in the front one time, because his forehead was just a pulp. I got there quick as it happened, it must not of been over five minutes. Hadn't even a fly landed on him yet.

Well, it wasn't twenty minutes after that before they brought that girl around the side of the barn. Of course, I didn't have any idea then she was a girl. You can believe it or not, but that child had on britches. She isn't even a child really, I'd put her at sixteen or better—old enough to be settled down married and not messing with such foolishness as wearing britches and whatever-all else she's been at—but at first I thought it was a boy of twelve or fourteen maybe they'd caught back there doing something, into something he hadn't ought to of been. To my mind they were bringing this little fella around from the back —it was Angus Alford and Field Tatum had ahold of her on either side by the arm. Brought her over to where Sheriff Moore was standing talking to Dayberry, took that child's hat off—she had on an old slouch hat swallowed her face to the bottom of her ears nearly—and sure enough it was a girl. I liked to dropped my teeth. Her hair was twisted up in a stingy little bun, had her eyes scrinched up like a Chinese. But there wasn't any mistaking it was a female. The men kept on talking, hardly seemed to look at her. I believe they were embarrassed. She was just as still as she could be. Well, I had to scrooch over a bit—Hattie Chessley had got right in my way—and that's when I seen Lodi sitting on an old hay bale inside the barn. He was about as still as that child yonder, had a fat big-barreled pistol, I don't know what it was, some kind of pepperbox or something, appeared to me like, laying in his lap. He was looking at that girl, she was looking at him, both of them still as a dead possum, and I didn't know what to think. Afterwhile Grace Lovett sidled up to me and whispered that was his daughter. I wasn't any too surprised to hear it. John Lodi's always been about as strange as they come, didn't surprise me any to see he had him a peculiar daughter. I just said to myself then, I said, Well, come to the hearing, they're going to learn a whole lot more about it. Going to find out those two aren't the only strange ones in that family. Provided they get as far as a hearing. Provided somebody don't kill him before the law gets him to Fort Smith. Un-huh. You mark my words. That's just what I said.

So in another little bit, here come the other one. Walking down the street. Come from up north, around Lolly's or somewhere. I seen everybody looking, so I turned and looked, and here she come, sashaying down the street toward Dayberry's. Sashaying isn't quite the word, because she was coming slow, but there was something in it gave the
appearance
of sashaying. Had on a little old calico skirt looked like it had about nine petticoats under it. Had her hair all swooped up, no bonnet on nor nothing. Now, this one's about as pretty as the other one is homely, but you can see in a minute they're kin. She come slow; everybody just hushed up and turned and looked at her. She didn't blink an eyelash, never acknowledged a one of us nor the dead man on the street, just kept her eyes on her sister and come on. I wanted to slap her. I hate to say it, a time like that, but that child had a look on her face made me just want to slap her. That was her uncle laying yonder, she never even looked at him. Of course, I didn't know that yet, but I knew it was a dead man her daddy'd blowed to Kingdom Come, you'd think she could've had the decency to at least look a little scared or shamed or something. She walked right in amongst us and past us, went over by the little scrawny one and stood beside her, kept her eyes straight ahead. Like she was sleepwalking nearly, except she never wiped that look off her face. I'm telling you the truth, there was more than a few of us would've been glad to wipe it off for her.

It couldn't have been fifteen or twenty minutes then, here come the rest of them, just a-going lickety in a brand-new flatbed wagon. Had a highstepping team of horses, and I'm telling you what, here they come. The one boy was whipping those horses, they barreled up there and the boy in the cowboy hat and boots jumped down. I don't know how many of them there were altogether, the three boys and about a half-dozen grown girls on down to one little'un couldn't have been over seven or eight years old. The minute the horses jerked up, those girls went to wailing. It was the pitifulest thing you nearly ever saw. That was their daddy laying with his neck blowed out yonder, I didn't need anybody to sidle up and whisper me that. The one boy hollered at them to all stay put, and he jumped down, those poor girls just a-weeping and holding on to one another, and then the boy that was driving jumped down.

That first boy that come out of the wagon, the one in the hat and the fancy boots, he took one look at his daddy and immediately went to swooping and prancing all over that street. Couldn't be still a minute but he didn't know what to do with himself, and he just walked quick with his arms out, up and down and around, cussing. He didn't look at his father any more after that, just swooped like an old fighting rooster or something, up and down, cussing, like he was nearly blind. Well, I thank my lucky stars Jelly wasn't there to hear that kind of language, but every other child on the street surely was, on down to six and seven years old, and couldn't nobody put a stop to it. Looks to me like a few of those mothers could've took their children on off away from there and home where they belonged.