Christopher Buehlman - Those Across the River

Estel walked next to the man, looking at him intently. He was trying to look straight through the man’s skull and into his brain to see if it contained the memory of the Falmouth boy. Tyson Falmouth looking up into this man’s eyes. He’s going to hurt me. I’m too small. Did it happen that way?

“Look at me,” Estel said.

He did. Eyes so brown they were almost black. Intelligent eyes. He knew what was going to happen to him. The Negro looked forward again. Did he recognize him? Yes. He had sold something from the hardware store to a bald colored a few weeks ago. What was it?

He couldn’t recollect.

But he remembered that face.

It was him.

“Why did you kill that kid?”

But it was over. The man had no words for any of them, and the next time Estel tried to meet his gaze by moving in front of him, the man looked right through him.

“Answer the man,” the sheriff from Morgan said. When the captive did not answer, but only marched forward and looked ahead with that passive look like paintings of Jesus, the sheriff from Morgan poked him stiffly in the ribs with the barrel of his shotgun. The man winced but said nothing. That was how the abuse began.

When they got to the river, three lawmen went across. Then Gordeau and the dogs with Estel pulling the rope. Then two lawmen transported the prisoner, one of them pulling while the other kept his revolver cocked under the black man’s chin. They mistrusted his silence and felt that he would surprise them if he could.

They were right about that, of course, but they could not guess how.

“IT WAS LONG about five in the evening when we got to Cranmer’s place the second time,” Estel said.

“I beat on his door, but he didn’t come out til I yelled, Goddamnit, I know you’re in there and I ain’t goin away. He opened the door buttonin up his shirt, with a big yawn on his face, and said you caught me nappin. Said he was dreamin of Mexican señoritas and we was a rude subsitute. I said I was just wonderin if this was a friend of your’n. Dogs seem to think he was here last night. He and the nigger looked at each other and he said, I’ll tell you exactly what happened. I paid good money for this specimen, he said specimen , an it up an run away on me first chance it got. And then some more bullshit about thanks for returnin my rightful property and would we be good enough to help him tie it to a tree for a proper whippin, but I’d had enough.

“I grabbed hold of his greasy ass beard and yanked him out into the yard, just meanin to shake him up, but that’s not how the Morgan boys saw it. They thought I rung the soup triangle on Cranmer’s ass. The meanest one, Alfred, he kicked Martin in the leg real hard, and the others moved in. But it wasn’t gonna be easy. Martin yanked my thumb to get me off ’n his beard, and damn near broke it. Quick as a snake he jumped over and socked Alfred so hard in the guts he went down on all fours and hacked like a dog. One of them slow moments happened then, where you see everythin at once. The rest of them was movin at him, and I seen his eyes cut at a axe in a treestump. My hand started movin towards my holster an he saw that, too, an didn’t go for it. In that split second, the boys was on him, and they tangled his arms up from behind so all he could do was kick. But he did kick.

“His feet was bare, but he stomped his heel down on the foot a the fella behind him and then kicked up with both feet. Big Joe caught a toe in his eye and his hat come off his head. Then the man with Cranmer’s arms and him both fell. All the rest come on him then, kicked the shit out of him, kicked him so bad the dogs was whimperin. The nigger was watchin it all like it had nothing to do with him. He could a run, but didn’t. I do believe they would a kicked that man to death if I hadn’t a jumped in sayin easy, easy, he ain’t the one done it, you’re gonna kill him. When they backed off, I looked down at him where he was still holdin his arms around his ribs and grindin his teeth, and I said I told you your smart-ass mouth was gonna get you in Dutch. I will be back.

“Big Joe asked Alfred if he wanted one last lick, but he was wheezing too hard, so Joe took the lick. As we left, I saw Martin look at the axe again, and I wondered if he was sorry he didn’t use it.

“Said a funny thing then.

“ ‘Sing, locusts. Just keep singin.’ ”

MOST OF THE activity at the Falmouth place had died away.

It was getting on towards evening and the women had begun to find their men and take them home, leaving only a few to keep vigil with Miles and Edna.

Estel was glad not to have a big crowd around when they brought the Negro behind the Falmouth property to the knocked-down locust tree. They showed him the pit under the tree although the remains of the boy had already been removed. The captive showed no interest in the tree or the pit.

They led him to the hog pen and the hogs did not like him. The men from Morgan watched his face to see if he would maybe break down and confess, weeping in that lamentable darkie way so they could at least hang him knowing for sure they had the right man. But he did not do this. He never broke. He used his silence to keep them in doubt, and, although they knew this, the doubt bothered some of them.

It bothered Estel.

What did it matter to the boys from Morgan if they were wrong?

Hanging the wrong man, if it was a black man, would cost Morgan nothing. But it just might cost Whitbrow another day like today, and Estel could not take another one.

I imagine Miles Falmouth stood bent over his cane. His unshaven face looked raw and old although he was just forty. Estel said he shook when he saw the captive. Edna Falmouth held him around his soft, beaten shoulders. They stood there together and Miles shook.

“I’ve seen this’n in town, though it’s been a while. He’s one of them squatters. He killed my boy.”

Estel looked at Miles.

“You sure about it, Miles? Cain’t be wrong on somethin like this.”

Miles was sure.

“Hang this sumbitch or I’ll shoot him.”

Estel felt sick again.

O Lord Sweet Lord honey and milk are under Thy tongue, my love is like a goat that stands on Mount Gilead, and why did I seek this post?

NOW ESTEL BROUGHT out a cigar, a cheap one by the smell, but that didn’t stop me from taking a drag of it when he extended it towards me cherry first, like some cornpone Prometheus offering man the first glowing brand.

“But the dogs were sure?” I said.

A lynching. By God, I was sitting on my own porch in Georgia asking an officer of the law about what I was now sure would turn into the lynching of the black man. The one who wanted a pickle. The one who stared at Dora in the square. How did I get here?

“I asked Lester if them dogs was ever wrong an he said no. I never seen it, he said. I leaned down to him real quiet, like I’m leanin down to you, and I said, would you hang a man over what them dogs say? Is it enough, Lester? And he didn’t say nothing, so I said, you gotta help me.

“Lester closed his eyes and said, them dogs ain’t wrong, but I ain’t gonna sleep so good knowin a fella swung cause I said so. So I’m sayin I don’t know.

“Now I saw that the boys from Morgan had got them a crate and some rope from Miles, and the nigger was watchin all this knowin what it was for but not lookin like he gave a rat’s ass. What was he thinkin? An innocent man should a been screamin for his life, but then a guilty man usually made noise, too. Not that I know from hangins. Neither did Big Joe. He didn’t know how to make a noose, so after a minute he gave up tryin and his man Alfred strung it. Then they took the cuffs off him and tied his hands with rope so nobody’d know the Law’d done it.