Glenn Taylor - A Hanging at Cinder Bottom

“It will be a fine affair,” Harold said. He was getting itchy for town.

“Indeed.” Rufus eyed the second house and imagined it as campaign headquarters. He looked beyond it to the bones of a madman’s chapel and imagined its foundation laid across with dynamite and lit by a lengthy wick. Boom , he wished to intone aloud, but he refrained. He shut his eyes and saw the Westward Addition in full swing. He saw switchbacked roads, paved, leading to terraced homes, redbrick foursquares with milk-skinned children playing out front. The children made gleeful sounds. None were colored. None had crossed an ocean to end up in the Westward Addition.

Trent said, “It will all come together nicely,” though he wondered at the very sound of the words if it was so.

Al strode back toward the table, his weight on his cane.

Harold Beavers wrote dates in his ledger book and slammed it shut. “Why in the hell ain’t we signing papers today?” he asked.

Al sat down stiff. “The lawyer of Mr. Hood finds mistake on surveyor’s plat,” he said. “You will have ten acres more than was known, to the east.” He pointed up the mountain. The men looked where he pointed.

Abe could scarcely keep back a smile. His daddy had told the lie they’d rehearsed, and he’d done it convincingly. The truth was that the lawyer had already gotten the papers in order, and the sale had already been made. The buyer was never to have been Rufus Beavers. The buyer was in fact a newly retired politician. He was a prohibitionist preacher and friend of Mr. Hood. The owner of the land on which they now sat and dined was a man who’d never set foot there, a man with unquestioning faith in his son’s written word. He was Oswald Ladd Sr., smiling signer of power-of-attorney forms, father of the frail boarder Abe had seen off to Virginia the very day before, deed and documents in hand, telling him, “Just give us two weeks to clear off and it’s yours.” Abe had groomed the junior Ladd for a month, and the man had boarded the train grinning, content in the knowledge that his daddy was the next owner of Hood House and its acreage, that together they would draw up plans for a prohibitionist temple of godly converters who would settle on the mountain, look down upon Sodom, and configure their cleansing of the three thousand lost.

Up the ridge, a turkey vulture soared. The Beavers brothers watched it, happy at the thought of more land.

Harold imagined the bird exploding midflight.

Rufus wondered about the status of the chocolate cake.

The children could be heard in the trees at yard’s edge. Baby Ben made a squirrel call and Agnes answered.

Harold Beavers said, “When do we get to sit and turn over some cards?” He’d been playing more as of late, and he was looking to separate somebody from his bankroll, preferably Abe Baach or the big city marks he’d roped.

“Abe and I have worked all that out,” Trent said. He resented having to repeat what he’d already told Harold the night before, but he was accustomed to the man’s lack of memory. “Chicago Phil is due back in Keystone either today or tomorrow.” He eyed Abe for confirmation and was given such in a nod. “Abe has kept him on the line by way of enticement.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Harold Beavers said.

“Means he’s in love with Rose Cantu,” Abe told him. “Goldie’s best-looking girl. He couldn’t stay gone less you castrated him.”

They laughed a little.

“It isn’t only that,” Abe said. “I’ve been in his ear about who plays the Oak Slab. I told him Little Donnie is the best there is, and he already thinks he can beat the boy.”

“Why does he think such a thing?” Harold was getting irritable. Thirsty. He smacked his throat where a mosquito fed.

Trent put his hands at table’s edge. “I told you all this last night,” he said. “They partnered at Baach’s table and the boy pretended to lose while Abe won.” Trent had begun to worry that Harold’s reckless ways might corrupt their plan. It was best to keep him in the dark on finer points.

“I’m going to rope him for a week back at our table,” Abe said, “let him go up a grand or so, and then send him and the others to the Oak Slab on Independence Day.”

Trent nodded. “I’ve got their invites pressed and a row of third-floor rooms on reserve. Tickets to Mercurio’s opening night too.”

“Phil’s a magic enthusiast,” Abe said.

Harold shook his head. He said, “And you going to treat ole magic enthusiast like a king, are you?”

Rufus grew tired of it. “We’ll treat him like the goddamned hero of San Juan Hill if we have to Harold,” he said. “The man’s carrying in property that will bankroll your sorry run and then some.”

Harold held up his hands in compliance and said, “Simmer down brother.” He pointed at Abe. “It’s him who I want to play anyhow.”

Abe looked straight at him. “Soon as Phil and the others push off,” he said, “you can come on over and sit at the Wobbler.”

“The what now?”

“It’s the name of Abe’s table,” Trent said. “Rutherford aims to play too.”

The screen door on the main house slapped hard against the jamb and Sallie came on with the cake. Beyond thank-yous, they were quiet as she doled out wedges the size of axe heads.

They ate and grunted to express their pleasure at the dark ambrosial icing.

Harold wondered if it would be improper to ask for a little brandy in his after-supper coffee. She was gone before he could. “What about this championship fight?” he said.

“What about it?” Rufus did not care to speak on Jack Johnson, a man he despised. He’d let his money talk for him. He planned to bet upwards of five hundred dollars on Jim Jeffries.

“Just more money to be made,” Trent said.

“I hear Fred Reed is having a big ole party at the Union Club.” Harold’s teeth were smeared brown. Black crumbs fell from his lips.

“He’s running a special telegraph wire for it,” Trent said. “Hauling in French wine.”

Rufus scoffed. “Thinks foamy wine’ll win him a council seat does he?”

Harold finished his cake and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “July fourth shapin up to be one busy day. Best be sure your police is ready to put down any sore-loser niggers when Jeffries lays Johnson on the canvas.”

“No need for that,” Trent said. “They’ll have their money on Jeffries.”

“Who will?”

“All of em. Most anyway. They ain’t fools when it comes to a smart bet. No colored man can beat Jim Jeffries.” Trent looked at his associates. They’d been in Florida too long. He said, “Fred Reed plans to put two hundred dollars on white.”

The children hollered and laughed in the woods. The hider had been sought and found.

Little Ben waddled quick across the cut weed lawn toward the house. Agnes followed. “Well, hide the whiskey and bend the knee boys,” Harold Beavers said. “God’s children comin this way.”

They paid him no mind. Children had no use of men like those at the table. Agnes leapt from grass to back stone step. She glanced in their direction and let the door settle quiet behind her.

Each man aimed his ear then at the sound of an approaching automobile. Its engine roared louder than the Oldsmobiles that had struggled up the same rough path that morning.

“I believe that might be Phil now,” Abe said. He stood.

The other men did not, though they turned their heads to see a top-down vehicle of Persian red cresting the hill. It was piloted by a slick-haired man in a gray lounge suit. Beside him was Tony Thumbs, monkey Baz in his lap. They picked up speed on the flat and tore a straight line at the lawn’s big table.

Now the men stood, for they sensed they might be run over otherwise.