Joe Lansdale - The Bottoms

Red opened his mouth as if to speak. He looked at me and the steam went out of him. He trembled slightly.

“I could say somethin’,” he said.

“You could. And if you must, say it. But I’ve said my somethin’, and I’ve got one more thing to say. I see you’re still wearin’ your shirts with the sleeves rolled down.”

There was a movement in Red’s face that frightened me. But it was just a twitch, then it was gone.

“You tell Jacob what I said, hear? He’s been warned. I’ve paid my debt.”

“You think that’s paying a debt, you’re wrong, Red. Let me tell you somethin’. Now you’ve been warned. Don’t you ever step foot on this property again. You hear?”

“I hear.”

Red went to the door, turned, looked at me and Mama. “That’s a fine-looking boy you got there, May Lynn. And you got that little girl out there too. So innocent. I believe she’s gonna look a lot like you. Already starting to get your face. I hate to think of you bringing them up to think niggers are the same as us. It’ll just bring them grief, put them on the same level as the niggers. You too, May Lynn.”

“Good day, Constable,” Mama said.

Red unconsciously rubbed his left hand along his right sleeve, went out without shutting the door, got in his dented black Ford and drove away.

A thin plume of dust followed after the car and drifted in the air long after he was gone.

Mama made me swear not to tell Daddy about Red’s visit. She said she wanted to do it. Word it right so he didn’t get angry and go off half-cocked. I didn’t worry much about that. Daddy could be a little impatient at times, and I had seen him angry, but I hadn’t never seen him go off half-cocked.

That night I listened with my ear close to the wall to find out what Mama told Daddy about Red, but they were whispering so light I couldn’t make anything out but their bedsprings making noise. I drifted off to sleep finally, and when I awoke the next morning I remembered faintly dreaming of the Goat Man.

It was a Monday, and Daddy was off from the barbershop. He had already gotten up and fed the livestock, and as daybreak was running like a broken egg yolk through the trees and the birds were calling out that they were in search of breakfast, he got me up to help tote water from the well to the house. Mama was in the kitchen tending the wood stove, cooking grits, biscuits, and fatback for breakfast.

When we came in she smiled and he kissed her on the cheek and ran his hand down her back. She gave him a quick peck on the mouth and a wink.

We left out then for another bucket of water, and about halfway to the well, I said, “Daddy. You ever figure out what you’re gonna do with ole Mose?”

He paused a moment. “How’d you know about that?”

“I heard you and Mama talkin’.”

He nodded, and we started walking again. We got water and started back to the house. He said, “You ain’t mentioned you know anything about that, have you?”

“No sir.”

“Good boy.”

“So what have you decided to do with Mose?”

“I haven’t decided. I can’t leave him where he is for good. Someone will get on to it. I’m gonna have to take him to the courthouse, or let him go. There’s no real evidence against him, just some circumstantial stuff. But a colored man, a white woman, he’ll never get a fair trial. I guess I’d done let him go, but I got to be sure myself he didn’t do it.”

“I thought you said the woman was colored. Or part white.”

“You was listenin’ from somewhere at Mrs. Canerton’s house, wasn’t you?”

I admitted it.

“Well, let me tell you somethin’. That woman was white. She didn’t have a drop of colored blood that anyone knowed of. She was dark-lookin’ ’cause she was bloated and dead and up there in that tree for the wind and rain to hammer on. Folks that found her just thought she was colored, way her skin had turned. Around here, someone gets a good burn in the sun and it turns brown, there’s someone whisperin’ there’s colored blood in ’em. Hell. I thought she was colored too. Body gets like that, you can’t tell much about skin or race or nothin’. Death puts us all even, boy.”

“Mr. Chandler said she was colored.”

“She’s dark-skinned, son. Just like I said.”

“But you said-”

“I threw that in to keep from stirrin’ people up. You put white and colored in the same sentence, folks start to stir.”

“You did put white and colored in the same sentence. You said she was part white.”

“You’re right.” Daddy paused to take his pipe out of his pocket, stuff it with tobacco, and light it. “I’m not sure that was smart, son, but I was playing the odds. I said she was colored, no one cares. Had I said she was white, there’d have been lynchin’s all over this county. But she’s got white blood, it gives most folks pause, makes some folks see her as a human being. On the other hand, she’s not so white they’d get worked up over it. It’s a sad state of affairs, but that’s how it is.”

“How’d you find out she was a white lady?”

“Thinking she was colored, I drove her body over to Pearl Creek to see if Doc Tinn or Reverend Bail knew who she was. They did, but not because she was colored. She was white and had a bad reputation and mostly worked the colored section over Pearl Creek. That gave her a worse reputation. A white woman that’ll lie down with coloreds don’t get the respect of one will lie down with her own kind. And a woman like that don’t get much to begin with. She hoboed to get to Pearl Creek from Tyler, rode the train back when she could catch it. Did most of her work at the dance joints and about. But, word gets out – and it will eventually – that she was white, well, it won’t matter she was a woman none of the so-called self-respectin’ men over here would have given the time of day, even if they might have given her a dollar. Them same men are gonna be up in arms, ravin’ about how a colored killed her and how all white womanhood is in danger.”

“Ain’t it in danger?”

“Womanhood in general is in danger, son. Anyone could be in danger with a killer like this. But I think it’s mostly women he’s after. I’m just sayin’ she’d gotten killed by a train or drowned by accident, wouldn’t have been no mournin’. But folks like Nation think maybe a colored had his way with her, well, Mose and every colored boy over twelve might end up bein’ lynched.”

We carried the buckets toward the house.

“You said you got to be sure Mose didn’t do it, but you don’t think he did, do you, Daddy?”

We were on the back porch now. Daddy set his bucket down. I set mine down too. “It’s like I’ve opened this box and I don’t know how to close it. Mistake I made was mentioning it. That was pride talking.”

“You were proud of arresting Mose?”

“I was proud of the fact I was doin’ somethin’. So far in this whole business all I’ve done is look at a couple dead bodies, talk to a few folks, and that’s it. I don’t know no more than I did when I started. ’Cept these women got names, and I figure they got loved ones. Worse thing about it, I don’t even know for sure. I didn’t try to find any of the families or go see ’em. I was gonna do any real investigatin’, that’s what I should have done. It’s what I ought to do. Mistake I made was arrestin’ Mose in the first place, then tellin’ I’d arrested someone. And I did that on account of Doc Stephenson.”

“How’s that?”

“He was in the shop. He came in to get Cecil to cut his hair. He used to come in now and then for me to do it, but after that little event over in Pearl Creek, he only has Cecil do it. I guess my pride got to me, him thinkin’ I didn’t know what I was doin’, and Cecil gettin’ the bulk of the customers, so I shot my mouth off like I was talkin’ to Cecil.”