Joe Lansdale - The Best of Joe R. Lansdale

I stopped listening to Tom, who was chattering on about something or another, and slowly turned my head toward the woods, and there, between two trees, in the shadows, but clearly framed by the light, was a horned figure, watching us.

Tom, noticing I wasn’t listening to her, said, “Hey.”

“Tom,” I said, “be quiet a moment and look where I’m lookin’.”

“I don’t see any —” Then she went quiet, and after a moment, whispered: “It’s him… It’s the Goat Man.”

The shape abruptly turned, crunched a stick, rustled some leaves, and was gone. We didn’t tell Daddy or Mama what we saw. I don’t exactly know why, but we didn’t. It was between me and Tom, and the next day we hardly mentioned it.

A week later, Janice Jane Willman was dead.

We heard about it Halloween night. There was a little party in town for the kids and whoever wanted to come. There were no invitations. Each year it was understood the party would take place and you could show up. The women brought covered dishes and the men brought a little bit of hooch to slip into their drinks.

The party was at Mrs. Canerton’s. She was a widow, and kept books at her house as a kind of library. She let us borrow them from her, or we could come and sit in her house and read or even be read to, and she always had some cookies or lemonade, and she wasn’t adverse to listening to our stories or problems. She was a sweet-faced lady with large breasts and a lot of men in town liked her and thought she was pretty.

Every year she had a little Halloween party for the kids. Apples. Pumpkin pie and such. Everyone who could afford a spare pillowcase made a ghost costume. A few of the older boys would slip off to West Street to soap some windows, and that was about it for Halloween. But back then, it seemed pretty wonderful.

Daddy had taken us to the party. It was another fine, cool night with lots of lightning bugs and crickets chirping, and me and Tom got to playing hide and go seek with the rest of the kids, and while the person who was it was counting, we went to hide. I crawled up under Mrs. Canerton’s house, under the front porch. I hadn’t no more than got up under there good, than Tom crawled up beside me.

“Hey,” I whispered. “Go find your own place.”

“I didn’t know you was under here. It’s too late for me to go anywhere.”

“Then be quiet,” I said.

While we were sitting there, we saw shoes and pants legs moving toward the porch steps. It was the men who had been standing out in the yard smoking. They were gathering on the porch to talk. I recognized a pair of boots as Daddy’s, and after a bit of moving about on the porch above us, we heard the porch swing creak and some of the porch chairs scraping around, and then I heard Cecil speak.

“How long she been dead?”

“About a week I reckon,” Daddy said.

“She anyone we know?”

“A prostitute,” Daddy said. “Janice Jane Willman. She lives near all them juke joints outside of Mission Creek. She picked up the wrong man. Ended up in the river.”

“She drown?” someone else asked.

“Reckon so. But she suffered some before that.”

“You know who did it?” Cecil asked. “Any leads?”

“No. Not really.”

“Niggers.” I knew that voice. Old Man Nation. He showed up wherever there was food and possibly liquor, and he never brought a covered dish or liquor. “Niggers find a white woman down there in the bottoms, they’ll get her.”

“Yeah,” I heard a voice say. “And what would a white woman be doin’ wanderin’ around down there?”

“Maybe he brought her there,” Mr. Nation said. “A nigger’ll take a white woman he gets a chance. Hell, wouldn’t you if you was a nigger? Think about what you’d be gettin’ at home. Some nigger. A white woman, that’s prime business to ‘em. Then, if you’re a nigger and you’ve done it to her, you got to kill her so no one knows. Not that any self-respectin’ white woman would want to live after somethin’ like that.”

“That’s enough of that,” Daddy said.

“You threatenin’ me?” Mr. Nation said.

“I’m sayin’ we don’t need that kind of talk,” Daddy said. “The murderer could have been white or black.”

“It’ll turn out to be a nigger,” Mr. Nation said. “Mark my words.”

“I heard you had a suspect,” Cecil said.

“Not really,” Daddy said.

“Some colored fella, I heard,” Cecil said.

“I knew it,” Nation said. “Some goddamn nigger.”

“I picked a man up for questioning, that’s all.”

“Where is he?” Nation asked.

“You know,” Daddy said, “I think I’m gonna have me a piece of that pie.”

The porch creaked, the screen door opened, and we heard boot steps entering into the house.

“Nigger lover,” Nation said.

“That’s enough of that,” Cecil said.

“You talkin’ to me, fella?” Mr. Nation said.

“I am, and I said that’s enough.”

There was some scuttling movement on the porch, and suddenly there was a smacking sound and Mr. Nation hit the ground in front of us. We could see him through the steps. His face turned in our direction, but I don’t think he saw us. It was dark under the house, and he had his mind on other things. He got up quick like, leaving his hat on the ground, then we heard movement on the porch and Daddy’s voice. “Ethan, don’t come back on the porch. Go on home.”

“Who do you think you are to tell me anything?” Mr. Nation said.

“Right now, I’m the constable, and you come up on this porch, you do one little thing that annoys me, I will arrest you.”

“You and who else?”

“Just me.”

“What about him? He hit me. You’re on his side because he took up for you.”

“I’m on his side because you’re a loudmouth spoiling everyone else’s good time. You been drinkin’ too much. Go on home and sleep it off, Ethan. Let’s don’t let this get out of hand.”

Mr. Nation’s hand dropped down and picked up his hat. He said, “You’re awfully high and mighty, aren’t you?”

“There’s just no use fighting over something silly,” Daddy said.

“You watch yourself, nigger lover,” Mr. Nation said.

“Don’t come by the barbershop no more,” Daddy said.

“Wouldn’t think of it, nigger lover.”

Then Mr. Nation turned and we saw him walking away.

Daddy said, “Cecil. You talk too much.”

“Yeah, I know,” Cecil said.

“Now, I was gonna get some pie,” Daddy said. “I’m gonna go back inside and try it again. When I come back out, how’s about we talk about somethin’ altogether different?”

“Suits me,” someone said, and I heard the screen door open again. For a moment I thought they were all inside, then I realized Daddy and Cecil were still on the porch, and Daddy was talking to Cecil.

“I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that,” Daddy said.

“It’s all right. You’re right. I talk too much.”

“Let’s forget it.”

“Sure… Jacob, this suspect. You think he did it?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Is he safe?”

“For now. I may just let him go and never let it be known who he is. Bill Smoote is helping me out with him right now.”

“Again, I’m sorry, Jacob.”

“No problem. Let’s get some of that pie.”

On the way home in the car our bellies were full of apples, pie, and lemonade. The windows were rolled down and the October wind was fresh and ripe with the smell of the woods. As we wound through those woods along the dirt road that led to our house, I began to feel sleepy.

Tom had already nodded off. I leaned against the side of the car and began to halfway doze. In time, I realized Mama and Daddy were talking.