Joe Lansdale - All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky

Jane dropped the can on the floorboard.

Bill wagged the gun at me. “And I know you got your hand in your pocket there, and I’m thinking pocketknife, ’cause whatever’s there ain’t big enough to be a gun.”

“What about me?” Tony said.

“Hell, boy,” Bill said. “You ain’t got nothing.”

“I hope,” Jane said, “that you didn’t bring us all the way out here to steal what’s in our bags, ’cause you are going to be sorely disappointed.”

“Nothing like that,” Bill said. “I brought you here to pick peas, just like I said.”

“But I’m thinking,” Jane said, “not for two dollars a day.”

“You’re smart,” he said.

“Not smart enough,” she said.

“No,” he said, “not smart enough.”

“Will we get a dollar?” Tony asked.

“No,” Bill said. “No dollar.”

“Same as the colored?” Tony asked.

“Even the colored don’t make what I said the colored make,” Big Bill said. “And I ain’t got sixteen workers neither.”

He waved the pistol at me. “Toss that pocketknife on the seat there and get out of the car.”

35

As we walked toward the barracks, Big Bill behind us with the pistol, I felt like the world’s biggest horse’s ass. Being tired and hungry can suck your smarts away sure as a leech on your leg can suck your blood. Right then I felt I couldn’t have been any dumber if my head was cut off.

When we got to the barracks, I noted there were no windows, just some trapdoors in the walls that were held shut with long metal rods that ran through them. The rods were fastened to the building with padlocks on either end. There was no light coming through any cracks. Inside it might as well have been the bottom of the ocean.

“Here’s your nice barracks,” he said. “You can find your place inside.”

“We’ll be missed,” Jane said. “My relatives have plenty of money, and they’ll send the law looking. They’ll find us, and they’ll find you.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about those rich relatives I figure you don’t have,” Big Bill said. “Or the law either.”

He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a badge and held it up so we could see it in the moonlight.

It was a sheriff’s badge.

“Dang it,” Tony said.

“Yeah,” Big Bill said. “Dang it. Thing about being sheriff is I pretty much do what I want. I ain’t out to hurt you none. I want you to know that. I just want my peas picked, and I ain’t got the money to get them picked, least not the way I want. And then there’s this: I don’t want to pick them myself. And couldn’t. Not all those peas.”

“I don’t figure you actually planted them,” Jane said.

“No. I had help.”

“Our kind of help?” I said. “Meaning you watched from the sidelines?”

“Now that you mention it, yes.”

“You are not much of a lawman, are you?” Jane said.

“Listen here,” he said, “times is tough. I’m sheriff, and I don’t even have a house to live in. My other property, where I lived, the bank took it. These days, you got to do what you got to do to get along. And these pea patches, that’s how I get along. Them and my car is what I got.”

“So that makes it all right,” Jane said.

“No. But it makes it what it is,” he said.

“This ain’t just five days, is it?” I said.

“I get through with you here, it’ll be more than five days, but I’ll let you go when the job’s done. And if you’re thinking you’ll tell someone, don’t bother. I’ll just say you spent your pay and we didn’t get along while you worked here, and you’re just saying bad things about me ’cause you’re … what’s the word?”

“Try disgruntled ,” Jane said.

“That wasn’t what I was looking for,” Big Bill said, “but if that means mad as hell, that’ll do.”

“Close enough,” Jane said.

“Step to the left there,” Big Bill said.

We did. We had been standing in front of a padlocked door. He got the key out of his pocket with his other hand while he held the gun on us. He unlocked the padlock and pulled it off.

“Go on in,” he said.

“I guess,” Jane said, “this means we won’t be getting those three hot meals a day either.”

“Beans,” he said, “same as you got in that can in the car.”

We went inside and he closed the door. Right away, I knew there were people in there with us. I could hear them breathing. It was the kind of breathing you hear when people are worn out and sleeping. It was the kind of breathing my daddy used to do when he was through with a hard day and nothing had really come of it. There was also a smell about the place—the smell of body odor and chickens. I realized this long building had once been a chicken roost. Probably Sheriff Big Bill had raised chickens before he decided to replace them with folks like us and grow peas.

At the far end of the long building, on the back side, was light. The front might have been tight as a fat lady’s corset, but there was a bit of light on the long back wall. It was just a cut of moonlight, thin as a razor, and not that bright, but it showed me someone sitting on the floor with their back to the wall looking at us. I say looking at us, though I couldn’t be certain. I only knew whoever it was, was facing our direction.

My eyes began to adjust a bit, and now I could see that all along the sides of the building, lying on what looked to be feed sacks, were people. I couldn’t tell anything about them, if they were men or women. I could tell that most were big enough that they had to be at least my age.

We walked down between them toward the light. I don’t know exactly why we did that, but I guess it’s the way people are. We’re always looking for the light. At the rear, in the strip of moonlight, we could see who was sitting there now. It was a colored fella, probably our age. He had on overalls. He was awake, and he was looking at us.

“All the room left is back here,” he said “There’s some space along the wall here, you don’t mind sitting with me.”

“Of course we don’t,” Jane said.

“There’s some in here won’t. They don’t want to be by no colored.”

“We’re all some kind of color,” she said.

“Shut up,” someone said from the dark. “Bad enough we’re here, worse we can’t sleep.”

We sat down along the wall and spoke quietly.

“We was snookered by the sheriff,” Jane said.

“Yeah, he got me a week ago,” said the kid. “He promised me a dollar.”

“He promised us two,” Tony said.

“Your promise was better,” said the kid, “but looks like what we got is the same.”

“Yep,” Jane said. “It does. What’s your name?”

“Gasper.”

“Gasper?” Jane said.

“That’s it.”

“That’s an odd name.”

“Tell me about it. I never did get to ask my mama why she called me that. She died. She got the lung disease.”

“I’m sorry,” Jane said.

“Me too,” Gasper said.

“Is this as bad as it looks?” I said.

“It’s worse than it looks. All these folks. They, as you say, was snookered. I was traveling down from Oklahoma looking for work. I got some along the way, and then I got this promise, and it wasn’t much, but I thought a roof over my head, meals, that was worth something. Well, I got a roof over my head, but it’s not so much. I got a bag to lay down on. There’s other bags there for y’all.”

“How thoughtful of Sheriff Big Bill,” Jane said.

“Yeah, ain’t it,” Gasper said.

“We’re from Oklahoma too,” I said. “Around Hootie Hoot.”

“I ain’t never heard of it,” Gasper said. “My mama died and my daddy was already gone. I was living with my grandmother, but she died too. Just got old. I was already doing a man’s work, so I thought I’d go down here and do it and be out of the sand. I’m out of it, but I ain’t no better.”