Cormac McCarthy: Child of God

Mornin Sheriff, called out the man in the water, raising his hand.

Mornin Ed, said the sheriff.

The man in the boat gestured with his chin.

Did Mr Parker see you? said the man in the water.

We’re just goin up there now.

Seems like trouble ought to make people closer stead of some tryin to rob others.

Some people you cain’t do nothin with, the sheriff said.

Ain’t that the truth.

They rowed on. Take care, said the sheriff.

Right, said the man in the water.

They rowed into the hardware store entranceway and the deputy shipped the oars. Inside by lamplight people were moving about sloshing heavily through the water. A man climbed into the showcase window and peered out at the sheriff through the broken glass.

Howdy Fate, he said.

Howdy Eustis.

Biggest thing they took was guns.

That’s what they take.

I don’t even know how many. I expect we’ll find stuff missin for a year.

Can you get the numbers on em?

Not till the waters recede. If they ever do. The inventory sheets are in the basement. Well.

It’s supposed to clear tomorrow. Although at this point I really don’t give a shit. Do you?

It’s the worst I ever saw in my time, the sheriff said. It was supposed to of flooded in 1885 they said the whole town was under water.

Is that right?

So I’ve heard, said the deputy.

I know it’s burned down about a half a dozen times, said the storekeeper. You reckon there are just some places the good lord didn’t intend folks to live in?

Could be, said the sheriff. He’s got a bullheaded bunch to deal with here if it’s so though, ain’t he?

Damned if he don’t.

Anything I can help ye with?

Naw, hell. We’re tryin to salvage some of this stuff. I don’t know. It sure is a hell of a mess.

Well. When you get those numbers let me have em. They’ll most likely show up over in Knoxville.

I’d rather have the sons of bitches that stole em as have the guns back.

I know what you mean. We’ll do our best.

Well.

Well, let me get my inboard cranked up here and we’ll go pick up the mail.

The deputy grinned and dipped the oars into the gray water among the bottles and boards and floating fruit.

I’ll talk to you later, Fate, said the storekeeper.

Okay Eustis. I hate it about your bein broke into. Well.

They rowed on up the street and beached the skiff on the front steps of the post office and went in.

Mornin Sheriff Turner, said a pleasant woman from behind the barred window.

Mornin Mrs Walker, how you?

Wet. What about you?

Ain’t this somethin?

She eased a bundle of mail beneath the bars.

This it?

That’s it.

He leafed through the mail.

You ever find any of them people missin from them cars?

When we find one we’ll find em all.

Well when are ye goin to find the one?

We’ll find em.

I never knew such a place for meanness, the woman said.

The sheriff smiled. It used to be worse, he said. Rowing back down Bruce Street they were hailed from an upper window. The sheriff leaned back to see who’d spoke, eyes squinted against the fine rain.

You goin to the courthouse, Fate?

Sure am.

How about a ride?

Come on.

Just let me get my coat I’ll be right down.

An old man appeared at the top of a flight of stairs that ascended the side of a brick store building. He shut the door behind him and adjusted his hat and came down the steps with care. The deputy backed until the rear of the skiff came up against the stairs and the old man, taking a vicious grip on the sheriff’s shoulder, stepped in and sat down.

Old woman told me today, said: It’s a judgment. Wages of sin and all that. I told her everbody in Sevier County would have to be rotten to the core to warrant this. She may think they are, I don’t know. How you, young feller?

Fine, said the deputy.

Here’s a man can tell ye about the White Caps, said the sheriff.

People don’t want to hear about that, said the old man.

Cotton here said it sounded like a good idea to him, the sheriff said. Keep people in line.

The old man studied the rowing deputy. Don’t believe it, son, he said. They was a bunch of lowlife thieves and cowards and murderers. The only thing they ever done was to whip women and rob old people of their savins. Pensioners and widows. And murder people in their beds at night.

What about the Bluebills?

They was organized to set against the White Caps but they was just as cowardly. They’d hear the White Caps was ridin out someplace, like Pigeon Forge, they’d get out there and take up the boards in the bridge and lay in the bushes where they could hear em to fall through. They hunted one another all over the county for two year and never met but one time and that was by accident and in a narrow place where neither bunch couldn’t run. No, those were sorry people all the way around, ever man jack a three hundred and sixty degree son of a bitch, which my daddy said meant they was a son of a bitch any way you looked at em.

What finally happened?

What finally happened was that one man with a little guts stood up to em and that was Tom Davis.

He was a wheelhorse wasn’t he, Mr Wade.

He was that. He was just a deputy under Sheriff Millard Maples when he busted up the White Caps. He made three or four trips to Nashville, paid for it out of his own pocket. Got the legislature to pass a bill attaching the Circuit Court to the Criminal Court over in Knoxville so that they’d have a new judge in Sevierville and then he started after the White Caps. They tried ever way in the world to kill him. Even sicked a big nigger on him one night comin back from Knoxville. In them days you could go by steamboat and this nigger come off another boat in the middle of the river and pulled a gun to shoot him. Tom Davis took the gun away from him and just brought him on in to jail. By that time White Caps was leavin the county in droves. He didn’t care where they went. He brought em back from Kentucky, from North Carolina, from Texas. He’d go off all by hisself and be gone weeks and come in with em on a string like a bunch of horses. He was the damnedest man I ever heard of. Was a educated man. Had been a school teacher. There had not been a Democrat elected in Sevier County since the Civil War, but when Tom Davis run for sheriff they elected him.

You don’t remember the flood of 1885 do ye? said the deputy.

Well, bein as that was the year I was born my memory of it is somewhat dim.

What year was it they hung them two, Mr Wade.

That was in 99. That was Pleas Wynn and Catlett Tipton that had murdered the Whaleys. Got em up out of bed and blowed their heads off in front of their little daughter. They’d been in jail two years appealin and what not. There was a Bob Wade implicated in it too that I’m proud to report is no kin of mine. I think he went to the penitentiary. Tipton and Wynn, they hung them on the courthouse lawn right yonder. It was right about the first of the year. I remember there was still holly boughs up and christmas candles. Had a big scaffold set up had one door for the both of em to drop through. People had started in to town the evenin before. Slept in their wagons, a lot of em. Rolled out blankets on the courthouse lawn. Wherever. You couldn’t get a meal in town, folks lined up three deep. Women sellin sandwiches in the street. Tom Davis was sheriff by then. He brung em from the jail, had two preachers with em and had their wives on their arms and all. Just like they was goin to church. All of em got up there on the scaffold and they sung and everbody fell in singin with em. Men all holdin their hats. I was thirteen year old but I remember it like it was yesterday. Whole town and half of Sevier County singin I Need Thee Every Hour. Then the preacher said a prayer and the wives kissed their husbands goodbye and stepped down off the scaffold and turned around to watch and the preacher come down and it got real quiet. And then that trap kicked open from under em and down they dropped and hung there a jerkin and a kickin for I don’t know, ten, fifteen minutes. Don’t ever think hangin is quick and merciful. It ain’t. But that was the end of White Cappin in Sevier County. People don’t like to talk about it to this day.