Joe Lansdale - A Fine Dark Line

“I was just passin’ through, on my way to see a cousin, and I come to Nacogdoches on the day of the hangin’. It was an October and a nice cool day. They say there was a kind of trial, but the sheriff, John Spradley, he didn’t think it was fair enough, and he done all he could to save the man for a trial. Hid him out on trains and such, took him from one spot or another. But they finally got him and told him he could be hung later or now, to make his choice. He chose to be hung. I was at the back of the crowd. They had a kind of tripod made of lumber and they put Buchannon on that box and kicked it out from under him, and he strangled to death. Slow-like. I told myself I wouldn’t never purposely watch no hangin’ again. It was like a picnic out there, Stan. All the men and women, mostly white, but there were colored too, way out back of it like me, and we was there to see that poor nigger hang, him swingin’ with his toes just off the ground, that rope squeezin’ the life out of him. It wasn’t even tied right, and on purpose is my guess. That way they had a little more spectacle. No neck break, just slow and horrible, him kickin’ and his tongue hangin’ out of his mouth damn near six inches. There was a fellow out there sellin’ peanuts, and people with wagons, with women and children in them, sittin’ there havin’ a picnic lunch.

“After it was all over I lost my lunch, and I left there and went on my way, avoidin’ anyone and everyone that was white. I was afraid they might not be satisfied, and want ’em another nigger. There’s a point in this story, Stan. What is it?”

“Don’t jump to conclusions?”

“That’s right. Just the other day, you was certain Old Man Stilwind had done it ’cause I laid out a little story for you. Now you done thought maybe James done it. And I thought maybe it was one of each . . . and the other thing is, outside of self-defense, the law is supposed to dish out justice, not you and me.”

“But it doesn’t always, does it?”

“Son, it ain’t like Hopalong Cassidy. Sometimes the good guys lose.”

———

I SAT OUT THERE with Buster and watched the movie, but went to my room after only one showing. I climbed into bed and thought about all that I had learned, and thought about Buster’s story. The idea of a man swinging and strangling like that made me sick.

I lay in bed with my hands behind my head, Nub stretched out over my feet, kicking his foot from time to time as he chased an imaginary rabbit.

I felt pretty miserable about what had happened to Callie. I liked to think my arrival had helped stop what was going on. I should have never let her out of my sight. Not with a guy like James Stilwind. I had an idea what kind of person he was, and I had spent my time looking out the window of the theater.

It was so wild the way the world and Dewmont really were. Probably all towns were like this and most people never found out. I wished I were most people. It was like once the lid was off the world, everything that was ugly and secret came out.

Just a short time ago my biggest concern, my greatest disappointment, was discovering there was no Santa Claus.

I sighed and looked at the ceiling.

Things had to get better.

“They have to,” I said aloud.

But fate wasn’t through with me yet.

21

NEXT MORNING, after breakfast, I let Nub out. He ran to the projection booth and started barking. I thought maybe a coon or a possum had crawled in there. It had happened a couple of times when Buster left the door open, or so Daddy told me.

Daddy said he had to run the critters out with a broom, chase them until they climbed the fence and headed back into the woods.

I had yet to make such a discovery, and was about half excited to think I might have finally done so. I was a little scared too. A coon or a possum can turn nasty when cornered.

I picked up the poking stick we used for picking up trash, and went out there. The door was closed. Coons and possums didn’t close doors behind them.

Buster?

If it was Buster, Nub wouldn’t have barked.

Still, I called Buster’s name.

He didn’t answer.

“Nub,” I said. “You sure?”

Nub scratched at the bottom of the door and growled. I said, “Whoever is in there, I got a gun. You better take it easy.”

I started backing away, ready to get Daddy.

I heard a voice from inside. “It’s okay, Stanley. It’s me. Don’t shoot.”

“Richard?”

“Yeah. Don’t get your daddy or mama.”

The door cracked open, and Richard poked his head out. There was dirt crusted on one side of his face.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said.

“You don’t have a gun.”

“No,” I said. “What are you doing in the projection booth?”

“I climbed the fence when y’all closed down. Slept in here.”

“Get back inside. I’m coming in.”

Inside, Richard said, “I slept on the floor on that piece of carpet. Wasn’t too bad. Best place I’ve slept in over a week.”

Richard was wearing a pair of overalls, no shirt. The overalls looked as if they had been washed in mud and dried in sin. There were bumps on his face from mosquitoes and his nose had run and dirt was crusted on his upper lip like a Hitler mustache. One knee of his overalls was ripped and the kneecap that poked through it had a scab on it. He didn’t have shoes on. His feet were caked with red clay and I could see scratches on top of them and along the ankles where he had outgrown his overalls.

“Your daddy was looking for you,” I said.

“I know,” he said.

“He and my daddy had words. They had more than words.”

“When was this?”

I told him what happened and said I was really sorry.

“Don’t be. I ain’t been home since before that happened. It must have happened mornin’ after the night I run off. He was lookin’ for me ’cause I run away and he wasn’t through whuppin’ on me. He run me out in the middle of the night, and if I hadn’t been sleepin’ in my overalls I wouldn’t be wearin’ nothin’.”

Richard turned. His back, bare except for the overall straps, showed long crusty red marks. “He got in some good licks, but I wouldn’t gonna take no more, so I took off.”

I noticed there were white scars next to the red marks. I knew his father whipped him more than I thought was right, but now I knew how bad he whipped him.

“Heavens,” I said.

“He took a horsewhip to me. Belt’s bad enough, but when I run, he grabbed up the whip, caught me out in the yard. It hadn’t been dark, I don’t know I’d have got away from him. He chased me a mile through the corn and then on out to the woods. Said he’d kill me if he caught me.”

“What started it?”

“Comic books. He said all that readin’ was makin’ me think I was better’n him, and he wasn’t gonna have that.”

“That started it?”

“Yeah. Sort of. One thing led to another. I told him I thought maybe I ought to finish high school. He wanted me to quit. Said the law wouldn’t do nothin’. Not around here. They didn’t care.”

Richard melted onto the carpet on the floor. I sat on the projection booth stool. I said, “Where have you been all this time?”

“Here and there. Out in them woods. Hid in a nigger’s barn outside of town. Stole some food out of a house. Just enough to eat, mind you. Some old corn bread was left on the stove and I got a piece a chicken out of the icebox. Left them a thank-you note, but I didn’t put my name to it.”

“Good grief, Richard.”

“Just couldn’t stay home no more. Daddy told me he was gonna kill me.”

“Surely he didn’t mean it.”

Richard laughed, but he didn’t sound all that amused. “You got it so good you don’t know a thing about how it is. I didn’t know it was any different till I met you. Just thought that’s the way it was. Beatin’s and all. Mamas havin’ black eyes and a swollen lip all the time . . . Stanley, think maybe you could get me somethin’ to eat?”