Joe Lansdale - The Bottoms

Tom rode with Cecil. He let her sit in his lap and steer some, but that didn’t last long. She soon moved to her side. Cecil was friendly, but he wasn’t stupid enough to let her wreck.

I followed, steering a little too hard, causing the car to go way too far to one side, then the other, but we made it home without me running off in another ditch or meeting a tree head-on. I even managed to pass a car without scaring the other driver too much.

By the time we stopped off at the house and I rode back with Cecil in Daddy’s car to get Sally, it got dark and the moon looked like a mashed potato in the sky, rain clouds running over it like burned gravy.

We got to Cecil’s, Daddy was gone. I don’t know where, since he didn’t have a car, but he had slipped off. The whiskey bottle wasn’t by the bed anymore. If nothing else, he was a neat drunk.

“Your Grandma can bring your Daddy into town tomorrow to get the car,” Cecil said. “I’ll have it over to the barbershop bright and early. I think it’s better you just take the mule on home, not try and drive at night. You ain’t got the experience, Harry.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s okay.”

We walked out on the front porch. I felt awkward and didn’t know what to do with my hands. Finally I offered one to Cecil. He took it and we shook. I got Sally Redback and started for home.

It was dead dark, and as fate would have it, the wind had picked up. I went by Mrs. Canerton’s to see if I could give back the book, but the lights were out and the book was still on the porch swing. I was nervous about leaving it there, lest the rain should start up again and blow water on it. I got the book, put it in Sally’s saddlebag, mounted up.

I rarely ever was out this late by myself, so I decided to take advantage of it. I rode Sally over to Miss Maggie’s. Unlike Mrs. Canerton’s, there was a light in the window. There was also a car in the yard. I couldn’t see it good, as its rear was to me. I rode Sally into a clutch of trees and waited a moment, trying to decide if I should bother her or go home. I had come to the conclusion I ought to just go on home, when I looked up to the sound of the car door slamming. The car started up. The taillights showed. One of them was broken. It was the same car that had sped away that time we got the message about Mose.

The car looped fast around the house, right through Miss Maggie’s yard, came around the side, between some trees. I tried to get a look, saw a man in a hat, and that was it. The car hit the dirt road, flashed its broken taillight at me, and was gone.

I started to chase after it, but that idea went away quick. Sally couldn’t keep up with that car, not even a little bit. She’d fall over dead if I pushed her to even try.

I got off Sally, tied her to a tree, walked toward Miss Maggie’s. I felt something in the air I can’t explain. Maybe it was just the car that had set me on edge, but it was as if the night were filled with needles and the cool points of them were sticking in my skin.

I walked quietly up on Miss Maggie’s porch. I turned to look toward the mule pen. The mule was there. The hog was in his pen, lying down in a mud pit it had made in one corner.

The screen was closed, but the door was slightly open. I could see the kerosene lamp sitting on top of the wood stove. I had never known her to keep it there.

I called her name.

No answer.

I knocked.

Still no answer.

I called some more. And when she didn’t answer this time, I opened the door and eased inside.

“Miss Maggie,” I tried some more.

I went over to the little curtain, still calling her name. I eased it back. The light from the lamp spilled inside, giving a greasy orange glow to the bed.

Miss Maggie, wearing one of her potato sack gowns, was lying on the bed, her hands extended above her in praise Jesus position, her wrists were bent against the wall, causing her thin black hands to fold downward as if she were dumping something from them. Her eyes were open.

I felt a tightening in my stomach, then a sourness. I called her name. I went over and touched her gently on the shoulder. I could feel that she was warm, but she didn’t respond.

“Miss Maggie,” I said, and began to cry.

I stepped out of there and pulled the curtain back. I went over to the lamp and blew it out.

I went out on the porch and stood there for a long moment, considering the night. The night had nothing to say. I walked back to Sally as if in a dream. I untied her and mounted. I started riding toward home.

I didn’t push Sally too hard, but I rode at as good a gait as she could carry me without wearing herself down. In the meantime, I was mentally trying to put something together; I was trying to figure on the broken taillight.

A man jumped out of the dark and grabbed Sally’s bridle.

“Harry,” Daddy said. “I’m sorry, boy. I didn’t mean to scare you. I think someone stole the car. I was walkin’ home, ’side the road. Saw you comin’ ’round the curve. I was afraid you’d get away from me.”

“You’re drunk,” I said.

“I was,” he said, and let go of Sally’s bridle. “I ain’t now. I’ve walked it off.”

“I thought you slept it off.”

For a moment, from the cock of his head, I knew he thought I had said too much. But he eased his posture, let it go.

“Car ain’t stolen,” I said. “It’s back at Cecil’s house. We had to use it to pull Grandma’s car out of a ditch. I come over there to get you, but you was sleepin’ it off.”

“I’m sorry, Harry.”

“Miss Maggie,” I said. “She’s dead.”

“What?”

“She’s dead. I was goin’ home, to find you. I thought maybe you might have got back. I was hopin’ you wouldn’t be too drunk to do somethin’ about it. Not that anything’s gonna do Miss Maggie any good.”

“She was old, Harry,” Daddy said, practically leaning on Sally.

I told him about the car, about the taillight.

“All right,” he said. “I’m climbin’ up there.”

He pulled himself up on Sally with some difficulty, and we rode back to her place.

Inside, Daddy lit the lamp, pulled back the curtain, sat on the edge of the bed and took a look. First thing he did was use his hand to close her eyes. He touched her skin.

“She feels a little warm.”

“She was real warm when I found her,” I said.

He held the lamp close to her face. “Someone’s had their hands around her throat. And that there pillow on the floor. I’d figure that ended up over her face. She was murdered, Harry.”

He turned to look at me when he said that, and his face in the light of the lantern looked as if it were made of wax.

I guess something in my face showed him something he didn’t want to see.

“I don’t know much of anything anymore, son,” he said, “but I do know that.”

Part Five

Only our memories allow that some people ever existed. That they mattered, or mattered too much. No one speaks of Old Maggie anymore. I can’t say I know anyone who remembers her but me. Remembers her cooking, which if I think about hard enough, I can taste; remembers her stories, strange and wonderful, and told without doubt.

Then perhaps that is conceit. She has family somewhere. They might be alive. Old as, or older than me.

They could remember.

But they can’t remember my memories.

Maggie.

Gone now.

Murdered.

And the seasons change as if nothing ever happened.

We went back and got the car at Cecil’s, him and Daddy not saying much, then with Daddy driving slow and me riding Sally, we went home.

All the way home I thought about poor Miss Maggie, and that the last time I had seen her she had been upset. I got all my crying out on that ride to the house so I wouldn’t be crying in front of the family when I got home.