Joe Lansdale - The Bottoms

Daddy laughed. “That one didn’t deserve considerin’. I knew darn well who done that.”

I turned back to the subject. “So Mary Jean told her Daddy what she did to hurt him?”

“Way I figure it. Bill wanted to kill the boy, but I told him I didn’t know who he was and didn’t remember how he looked. Far as he’s concerned they all look alike anyway, so he didn’t have no trouble buyin’ that.

“And she wasn’t raped. I told him I seen what was happenin’, and it sure wasn’t rape. Not the way she was laughin’.”

“So Mr. Smoote knows you know and he wants to make sure you don’t say ’cause he don’t want folks to know his daughter was with colored.”

“That’s about the size of it. I don’t intend to say no how. And I’ve told him that. I figured I asked a favor of him he’d do it ’cause he owed me. But Bill ain’t smart. Askin’ that boy to help him chain Ole Mose. He didn’t think that one through.”

That night I couldn’t sleep, got up carefully so as not to wake Tom, and still wearing my nightshirt slipped out onto the sleeping porch. I thought I might sleep there, but instead I ended up going out to the well in my bare feet and pulling up a bucket of water and using the dipper to get a drink. I took my time about it, listening to the crickets saw on their legs.

When I got back to the sleeping porch, Mama was there. She was sitting in the swing, wearing her quilted nightgown. I thought I might have awakened her, or that she was going to fuss at me for being up, but instead she patted the seat beside her and I went over and sat down.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

She put her arm around me. “Me either. What you thinkin’ about?”

“Nothin’ really.”

“Oh.”

“You?”

“Everything all at once. That’s why I can’t sleep. Sometimes things jumble together. I get to thinkin’ about what I’m going to fix for breakfast or dinner or supper. I wonder if the mule’s gettin’ too old to plow and if the weather’s gonna spoil the fall crop. I wonder if times gonna get any better, and I think about the mistakes in my life, and I think about you and Tom.”

“What about me and Tom?”

“No one thing. Just thinkin’.”

“Mama?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell Daddy about Red?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s hard to explain. I guess it’s because your Dad wouldn’t like the idea of Red comin’ around and I don’t want to start no trouble between ’em. They don’t like each other anyway, and yet they do.”

“How’s that?”

“Ain’t nothin’ worse than two friends fallin’ out. Underneath it all, there’s still the old feelin’s they had for one another.”

“I think it’s gone. Daddy don’t like Red.”

“There’s still the old memories, and that makes not likin’ each other all the worse and all the harder. It was me made the two of them not like each other in the first place. Then your Daddy savin’ Red like that, and them both courtin’ me, well, it made things difficult when me and your Daddy got together. They never could patch things up.”

“How do you mean?”

“I can’t explain it. But that’s why your Daddy was mad at Red

… People do foolish things, Harry. Things they wish they hadn’t done, but you can’t take them back. You have to live with them, get over them or work around them.”

“I don’t think Daddy felt foolish about what he was doin’,” I said.

“I didn’t mean your Daddy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someday, maybe I can explain it to you better.”

“Red still likes you, don’t he?”

“I guess he does. Or did until our little talk.”

“Is it like that with you? I mean like you say it is with Dad and Red?”

“Maybe. A little. Just a little. I think I like some memories better than I like some nows. You know what I mean?”

“I don’t know, Mama… What did you mean talkin’ to Mr. Woodrow about Miss Maggie and his Daddy?”

“Miss Maggie was Red’s Daddy’s mistress.”

“Mistress?”

“That’s kind of… well, Harry, this is embarrassin’. But it’s when a man is married, and he ain’t supposed to be but with his wife, but he don’t always do that. And he’s got him a woman on the side.”

“Miss Maggie was his woman on the side?”

“That was many years ago. She was a young woman then.”

I had a difficult time imagining Miss Maggie young.

“Red’s got a half-brother and a half-sister by her. Or maybe it’s two half-brothers or two half-sisters. I’m not sure. He knows that, but he never acted like he did. He don’t claim ’em. When he was little, that ole colored woman was like his Mama. His Mama was a cold woman, and didn’t have much to do with Red nor his Daddy. I think that’s why his Daddy took a mistress. But it was really more like havin’ a slave than a mistress. I don’t know how else to explain it, Harry.”

“I understand.”

“Harry, you’re gettin’ to be a young man. Figure that’s why your Daddy took you with him today. He wanted your company. Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Your Daddy and me got hopes for you and Tom. Jacob come from a real ignorant family, Harry. He don’t want that for you. He wants you to have a chance. Remember that when you feel like he’s pushin’ you a little too hard. He’s afraid you’ll end up like him.”

“I think I could do a lot worse.”

Mama put her arm around me. “So do I, Harry.”

Suddenly Toby barked and a voice called loudly: “Jacob. Come out.”

“Who was that?” I asked.

Mama said, “Sit tight.”

She got up, started through the house. I disobeyed her immediately and followed.

“Jacob,” the voice called again. “Come out.”

Through the windows and curtains I could see there was a brilliant light outside, a moving light, gnawing at the darkness.

Mama pulled back the curtains and looked. There were a dozen men on horseback, dressed in white robes. They were carrying torches. One man was standing on the ground, his horse being held by a mounted rider. On the far side of our road blazed a cross about eight feet tall.

Toby had come up on the front porch, and he was barking in as ferocious a manner as he could manage.

“Run get your father,” Mama said.

I started that way, but Daddy was already coming. He wasn’t wearing any shirt. He was carrying our double-barreled shotgun. He leaned the shotgun beside the door, went out on the porch.

Toby continued to bark. Daddy said, “Hush, Toby,” and after one more bark, just to show he wasn’t any lapdog, Toby went quiet. Mama called him softly and he came inside the house, growling under his breath.

I could smell the gasoline the cross had been doused with. I watched the flames whip at the air like a bloody sheet in the wind.

“You boys done missed Halloween,” Daddy said.

The robed man with the torch said, “We command you now, pilgrim. Tell us where we can find the nigger you arrested.”

“You don’t do worth a damn trying to hide your voice, Ben Groon,” Daddy said. “I’d recognize it anywhere. You don’t command me nothin’. You hear?”

“Turn over this nigger you got, Jacob. You can’t protect him.”

“First of all,” Daddy said, “I ain’t got no one in custody. Second of all, I wouldn’t turn him over if he was on the porch with me. Take that cross with you, and leave out. And by the way, I recognize you, Nation, just the way you sit that horse. And that means them two dumb boys of yours are bound to be with you. So that’s four I know right there.”

Daddy called to me. “Hand me that gun, son.”