Joe Lansdale - A Fine Dark Line

“I’ll be back,” Daddy said. He went upstairs, put on a clean shirt, got his hat, went out.

I said, “You think he’ll go to the police?”

Mom said, “I certainly hope so.”

———

DADDY WAS GONE for some time. We were all nervous about his whereabouts. Mom and Callie went about household duties, and I picked up paper on the lot with the nail stick. When I finished, I read the last Sherlock Holmes story in the book Buster had loaned me, but my mind never really wrapped around it.

We were, to put it mildly, excited when Daddy finally came in the door, removing his hat.

“Did you tell the police?” Callie asked.

“I did,” Daddy said. “I gave them the description you gave me. But first, I went by the shack where he lives . . . Where you lived, Rosy. He wasn’t there. And neither was the shack.”

“How’s that, Mr. Stanley?”

“It was burned to the ground.”

“He threatened to do that with me in it,” Rosy Mae said. “I’m glad I wasn’t in it.”

“Police are out looking for him. They said they’d keep us posted.”

“I want to keep all the doors locked,” Mom said. “I’m scared for all of us.”

“Not a bad idea,” Daddy said, “but I doubt he’ll come around here.”

“I ain’t puttin’ nothin’ past him,” Rosy Mae said. “Not now. If’n he’s big on the whiskey, they ain’t no tellin’.”

Suppose I should have mentioned seeing Bubba Joe, and I’m not exactly sure why I didn’t. Sort of felt it really didn’t matter. He wasn’t out there now, and Mother and Callie were already upset enough, and if I told Daddy, he might charge off looking for him, might do something to him that need not be done. Or maybe, though it was hard to imagine, Bubba Joe might hurt Daddy.

I was a mess of emotions.

In the end, I was silent.

At least as far as my family went.

———

THE DAY WENT BY nervously. I found myself constantly looking to see if Bubba Joe was trying to storm the drive-in fence, or the locked gate where cars came in.

When Buster arrived that day, I went out to see him.

“You look skittish, boy.”

“I am,” and I told him why.

“He’s a crazy nigger, Stanley. Always beatin’ on women and such. I ain’t never liked him, got no truck with him. But I don’t think he’ll come over here in the white section. He scared of whites. Not no individual white, but whites in general. Some coloreds I know think you get a cold from a white person it’s twicet as bad as from a colored.”

“I don’t think Bubba Joe is the kind to worry about a cold.”

“You got a point there.”

“Think I saw him the other day. Out front of the drive-in, staring.”

“Was he in the yard?”

“Out by the highway.”

“Still don’t think you need to shit yourself just yet. He ain’t likely to come on a white man’s property without an invitation . . . Well, he might. Ain’t no tellin’ what a crazy man will do.”

I didn’t exactly find that cheering, but I set about going through the newspaper clippings, primarily because Buster was enjoying it so much.

In the clippings I came across one about the murder and the fire written some days after they happened. It was a kind of sum-up of events so far. About how Margret’s body had been found by a hunter, and that he had reported it. It said it was a tragedy, but you could tell from the article the main tragedy for the writer was the death of the Stilwind girl, the burning down of the house of a prominent family. The article listed all the school awards the Stilwind girl had won, said how pretty she was. Margret was just a murdered girl down by the railroad tracks.

I pointed this clipping out to Buster.

“So, this fella, whoever he is that’s supposed to have done the killin’ on Margret, you think he’s running to make a killing back at the Stilwinds’?”

“I don’t know. I guess.”

“Think about it. He might have had time to get from the tracks to the Stilwind house, but then he got to get in, not get caught, and he got to tie the Stilwind girl up, gag her so she’ll be quiet. He’d be busy, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He got to do all that, get the fire set, get out of the house without gettin’ caught. Think on that.”

I thought a moment, said, “Maybe he tied and gagged her, went and killed Margret, then came back and set the fire.”

“Too much trouble.”

“It’s making my head hurt,” I said.

“I hear that,” Buster said. “I got a bit of an ache myself.”

———

AS NIGHT NEARED, I began to regret my plans with Richard. The idea of sneaking out frightened me. If my parents found out, I could be locked away at home for the rest of the summer.

There was also the fact I was scared because Bubba Joe was about. I had spent the day with a chill up my spine over Bubba Joe, and to think I might go out at night and wander about seemed crazy.

I could explain it to Richard, but it would sound like an excuse. I had made a deal and didn’t want to disappoint him. Or to be more truthful, I didn’t want to be perceived as a sissy, since he had already brought that possibility up.

As the sun set, my dread rose. After the family had gone to bed, and I presumably had gone to bed, I lay there with Nub, looking up at my ceiling, thinking about poor Margret, Jewel Ellen, the crazy woman in her abandoned house, the colored kid supposedly at the bottom of the heap of wood dust, and, of course, mean ole Bubba Joe and everything else that had crossed my mind in the last few weeks. Not to mention the memory of a braking semi-truck.

I thought about all those things until they jumbled together.

I considered listening to the radio for a while, but didn’t. I just lay there with my hands crossed on my stomach, and waited. This proved too much for me, however. The tension was making me sweat. I decided to get up.

I had put on my pajamas for bed, but after I was certain the house was quiet, I dressed in blue jeans, tennis shoes, and an old blue shirt. I had a little wind-up clock, and I carried it over to the window and let the moonlight show me its face.

Eleven fifteen.

I pulled a chair next to the window, so while sitting I could see out the crack between window and window fan, watching for Richard. I put the clock on the floor next to me, and about every thirty seconds I checked it.

At eleven forty-five, Richard showed up. I could see him ride into the yard and stop, waiting for me.

I took my pocketknife off the top of the dresser, put it in my pocket. I put my clock on the nightstand. Nub was standing beside me, all ready to go on an adventure.

“Stay, Nub. Stay here.”

Nub looked at me as if I had insulted him.

“Not this time, Nub. Stay.”

Easing the door open, I glanced back at Nub, who was lying down, looking at me in that sad way only a dog can manage. I closed the door, stepped on the landing, went quietly downstairs.

When I entered the kitchen, Callie, wearing her pajamas, was standing at the refrigerator pouring milk into a glass. The light from inside it framed her and poured out on the floor.

“Stanley?”

“What are you doing up?”

“I’m pouring milk. What are you doing dressed?”

“Nothing.”

“Bull. You were slipping out.”

“Was not.”

“Were too. You tell me what you’re doing, or I’m going to wake up Mom and Daddy.”

I hesitated. Lies slipped through my head like minnows through a big fish net, none of them big enough or good enough to catch and use.

“You’re gonna wake up Rosy,” I said.

Callie glanced toward the living room. We could hear Rosy snoring. It sounded like someone sawing logs with a dull crosscut.