Joe Lansdale - Edge of Dark Water

“Well, hurry up,” Terry said. “We’ll wait over by that tree.” He pointed at a big elm on the hill above the river.

Jinx darted across the way and inside the outhouse and closed the door.

Terry and I walked over to the elm, sat down under it, side by side, our backs against the trunk. Terry put the bag of money between his legs and looked off toward May Lynn’s house and the truck parked by it. He said, “Think he knows about May Lynn by now?”

“I don’t know, but I’m not in the mood to tell him anymore. Especially since we dug up the money his son stole and we’re thinking about digging his daughter up. I don’t know I could look him in the eye.”

“I don’t care,” Terry said. “With that money, we can get out of here.”

“Split three ways it won’t last long,” I said. “It’s a good start, but that’s all it is.”

“That’s all I want,” Terry said. “A good start. I’m like a bird with someone’s foot on its tail. I can’t fly. Stepdaddy has heard rumors about me, about me and a boy who came to visit before he married my mom. Those rumors are not true. But because he thinks it, he treats me bad and talks to me bad, and he hurts my mother’s feelings. He’s sucking the spirit out of her, like she’s nothing more than a sugar tit. And how come he’s made up his mind about me? How come so many people have? Do I seem like a sissy to you?”

I mulled that over.

“I do!” he said. “I can tell the way you’re thinking it over.”

“Well, you are very good-looking and you have good manners. I don’t see you with a lot of girls.”

“You’re a girl,” he said.

“But we’re friends,” I said.

Terry shook his head. “Looks are not my choice, and there are lots of people with good manners.”

“Not crossing my path,” I said.

“That’s the only reason you think I’m a sissy?”

I shook my head. “No. May Lynn. You didn’t look at her the way other men did. You didn’t even take notice when we went skinny-dipping; you hardly even looked.”

“You noticed her, or you wouldn’t be asking me why I didn’t notice her,” Terry said. “So do you like girls?”

“Sometimes, between me and you, I think I could have liked her. She looked like some kind of ice cream dessert. But no, I’m kidding. I reckon I’m inclined to men and a life of misery.”

“Not all men are miserable,” Terry said. “A man and a woman can be friends and be married.”

“Mama and Don aren’t friends,” I said.

“Yeah, and that’s precisely the reason they don’t get along,” Terry said.

“You got me there,” I said.

“That time we went skinny-dipping, when May Lynn was naked as a nymph, I noticed. I noticed plenty. I was on the sly about it, but I noticed. Thing is, May Lynn liked to use that body of hers for power, and I didn’t want to give it to her. I didn’t want her to know I liked what I saw. I don’t want anyone having power over me. Anyone. In any kind of way.”

Before I could fully get in line with this new information, I saw a man coming up from May Lynn’s house, trudging in the moonlight. He was heading for the outhouse. He had on a ragged hat and overalls and clodhopper boots with the laces untied. He had about him the look of a scarecrow that had climbed down from its pole.

“It’s Cletus,” I said, knowing it was the first time Terry had actually ever seen him.

We stood up but stayed in the shadows under the tree. Still, bright as the night was, he would have seen us easy had he looked that way, but he had his head down and was walking fast. He was a man on a mission.

He came to the outhouse, tugged on the door, and it didn’t open. Jinx had thrown the swivel lock inside. It wasn’t the sort of lock that would hold if someone was serious against it; it was more of a friendly reminder that someone was inside.

May Lynn’s old man stepped back and looked at the outhouse like it was strange to him. He said, “Who’s in there?”

“Just passing by,” Jinx said. “I’ll be out right soon.”

“Is that a nigger in there?” he said. “You sound like a nigger.”

“No,” Jinx said. “I’m white.”

“Better not be no black ass on my outhouse hole,” he said.

There was a long pause, and then the side of the outhouse bumped, and bumped again. A board came loose with a screech and popped out. Then another. Jinx shot out of there like a cannonball, causing the boards to fly completely off. She came charging toward the tree where we stood, pulling an overall strap over her shoulder as she ran.

Behind her came Cletus, running at a good pace, his loose bootlaces flapping.

I suppose the polite thing to do would have been to wait on Jinx, but we didn’t. Terry grabbed the bag, and we broke and ran like a couple of rabbits, leaving her to catch up. When I looked back over my shoulder, she was almost up with us, but Cletus was closing in fast.

“Hey, hey,” Cletus yelled. “That there is my bag.”

He had recognized it even in the dark.

We ran over the ridge and down to the river, and then we ran along its edge. When I looked back again, Cletus wasn’t slowing, and he had picked up a big stick. About that time, Jinx tripped and fell against the riverbank.

“I got you now,” Cletus yelled, and in fact he did.

I stopped and turned, saw him bring the stick down on the back of Jinx’s head as she tried to get up. It was a good solid blow, and it wasn’t meant to aggravate or wound. It was meant to kill. Jinx went down with her nose in the dirt, her heels flipping up like two startled birds.

Cletus dropped his club and grabbed her up and pulled her to the edge of the water and stuck her head under. Jinx started flailing her arms and legs and sputtering.

Cletus looked at us. “You two better come back, or I’m gonna drown this little nigger. If she’s anything to you, you better come back.”

I found a rock by the river, about the size of half a cantaloupe, dug it free with my fingers, hefted it in my hand, and started running at him. I seen then that Terry was running up alongside me, and he had the bag of money in one hand and a short, stubby stick in the other.

Cletus was pushing Jinx’s head under the water again as we came running up. He was yelling at Jinx, even though she didn’t have the pillowcase. “Why you got my pillowcase? You better tell me. Better give it back.”

I came up on him and brought the rock down with both hands. I hit him on the forehead with it, just as he turned to look at me. It knocked him onto his side and his hat come off. It wasn’t an entirely successful attack. The rock slipped out of my hands and fell down and hit Jinx in the small of the back. Cletus tried to get up, one hand holding his bloody head.

Then Terry was on Cletus with the stick, swinging it like a madman. Cletus grabbed Terry around the waist, driving him over Jinx, who still lay on the ground, trying to get her hands underneath her. So far, she had only managed to get her face out of the water.

When Terry was knocked back, the bag came out of his hand and came open and a bunch of that money puffed out of it like goose feathers from an old mattress.

Cletus came down on top of Terry with his fist raised, and then he saw the money scattered about, said, “That’s my money.”

Jinx, who had found her feet and her energy, got hold of Terry’s dropped stick and swung it. It was one heck of a swing. I could hear the wind coming off of it; it made a sound like an owl swooping down on a mouse. The blow caught Cletus in the back of the head. His noggin jumped up like it might come off his neck, and then he bent his head forward, shook once, and down came that stick again. Man, that was some hit. You could probably have heard it all the way to Gladewater. It caused Cletus to let out with a kind of bark like a startled dog, and then he fell off Terry.