The Bottoms Page 14

  “Donald’s old man. The mean sonofabitch. He was finally killed trying to rob a house in Mission Creek. He come through the window and was shot. I remember thinkin’, good riddance. Donald, he was a good kid. He wasn’t no worse than any kid that age, and he was killed like that. Burned a memory, Harry, that’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you, and it ain’t a memory I like worth a damn.

  “Bottom line is, I ain’t so pure, Harry. I didn’t do a thing to help Donald.”

  “Daddy, wasn’t nothing you could do.”

  “I like to think that’s the truth. But I ain’t never been the same since. I don’t hate no one because of their color if I can help myself. Sometimes bad things wash back on me, but I try, Harry. I try.

  “As for your Mama. Well, she’s always been that way. Some people can just see a thing is true right off. Your Grandma is like that too, and she passed it on to your Mama, and your Mama helps me understand it when I ain’t always willin’ to. It’s easy to hate, Harry. It’s easy to say this and that happens because the colored do or don’t do one thing or another, but life isn’t that easy, son. Constablin’, I’ve seen some of the worst human beings there is, both white and colored. Color don’t have a thing to do with meanness. Or goodness. You remember that.”

  “Yes sir, I will.”

  “You see, Harry, there ain’t no future in the way things been. A change has got to happen if people are gonna live together in this country. Civil War’s been over seventy years or so, and there’s still people hatin’ folks ’cause they’re born in the Northern or Southern part of these United States.

  “And the only difference for colored now is the masters can’t sell ’em. Mose just missed being a slave, but he ain’t never had nothing but white folks on his butt. That’s why he went off to live in the woods like he done. To get away from white folks. And you know what, he trusts me. Or seems to. I go over to check on him, he’s glad to see me. He thinks I’m protectin’ him.”

  “Ain’t you?”

  “He’d been more protected had I left him alone. I think I partly arrested him ’cause he’s colored and had that white woman’s purse.

  “Part of me, not a good part, was bothered by that. Him havin’ that white woman’s purse and him bein’ colored. Even if he did find it. I was a boy, he taught me how to put bait on a hook so it wouldn’t come off. How to skin catfish with a pair of pliers. How to tell directions in the woods and where all the good fishin’ holes are, and how to look for new ones. He ain’t never showed me no signs of being a killer, and I arrested him right away.”

  “You was just goin’ on evidence, Daddy.”

  Daddy smiled like his lips might run off the side of his face, poured the well bucket’s water into the tote bucket.

  When we finished with the water, Mama had breakfast on the table, and Tom was sitting there with her eyes squinted, looking as if she were going to fall face forward into her grits.

  Normally, there’d be school, but the schoolteacher had quit and they hadn’t hired another yet, so me and her had nowhere to go that day.

  I think that was part of the reason Daddy asked me to go with him after breakfast. That, and I figured he wanted some company. He told me he had decided to go see Mose.

  We drove over to Bill Smoote’s. Bill owned an icehouse down by the river. It was a big room really, with sawdust and ice packed in there, similar to the one at Pearl Creek. People came and bought ice by car or by boat on the river. He sold right smart of it.

  Up behind the icehouse was the little house where Bill lived with his wife and two daughters, who looked as if they had fallen out of an ugly tree, hit every branch on the way down, then smacked the dirt solid. They was always smilin’ at me and such, and it made me nervous.

  Behind Mr. Smoote’s house was his barn, really more of a big shed. It looked like it had fallen down once, then been blown back together by a high wind. That’s where Daddy said Mose was kept. We pulled up at the house and Daddy went up and knocked on the door. A ragged, big-breasted, teenage girl with dirty blond hair answered.

  Daddy said, “Elma. Your Papa in?”

  “Yes sir, I’ll git ’im.”

  A moment later Mr. Smoote was on the porch. He was a porky man in greasy overalls. He was missing several teeth and wore a big straw hat with dark sweat stains where the crown met the brim. He liked to curl his upper lip and spit tobacco through a gap in his teeth. He did that almost immediately, smacking a wad of tobacco in the sand around the porch.

  “I come to see him,” Daddy said.

  Mr. Smoote nodded. “All right. Let’s go on up there and get it over with. Someone come up on us, find out I’m housin’ that nigger, it could be trouble.”

  “I appreciate you doin’ this, Bill.”

  “I owe you some. You sure this nigger’s okay to have around here? I mean, he killed somebody, I don’t like him around my family. I got girls.”

  We stepped off the porch and started walking toward the barn.

  “Bill,” Daddy said, “I just brought him in for questioning, you know that. I can’t take him into town. Folks find out, it’ll be trouble. Your littlest girl could whip Mose’s ass.”

  “Well, he might use an axe.”

  “Bill, you’ve known Mose long as I have. What do you think?”

  “It’s hard to figure a nigger.”

  Daddy didn’t answer that. He said, “I really appreciate you, Bill.”

  “Well, it’s like I said. I owe you.”

  When Mr. Smoote opened the barn door the sunlight barged in. Dust floated up and made me cough. The sunlight poking through the dust motes made it seem as if I were seeing the barn and its contents through a veil. There was a smell about the place. Old hay. Sweat and soured sewage. The sewage part obviously came from a nasty-looking black can with flies humming around it.

  In one corner, sitting with his back against a hay bale, was Old Mose. I hadn’t seen him in a time, and I was shocked by how small he’d become. He wasn’t any taller than me, and not as wide. His arms were like sticks and the skin didn’t fit; it was loose enough to be double-wrapped. His patched overalls, gone nearly white from wear, flapped around his bony legs when he stood up. He grinned at us. He had a few teeth and a couple of them weren’t black. He bowed his head and it wobbled in our direction as if it hung there by a loose screw. His eyes were squinted, trying to accustom to the light. When he finally widened them, I was reminded that they were green as emeralds. They were the only part of him that seemed alive. His reddish black complexion, odd combination of freckles with kinky, red hair gone gray, made him look like some kind of gnome from a book Mrs. Canerton had loaned me. I couldn’t imagine when Mose had gotten so old.

  “Missuh Jacob, I’m sho glad to see you,” Mose said. His voice was like a crippled man trying to rise up on crutches.

  As Mose shuffled toward us, something dragged and thumped against the ground, stirring up dust. It was a chain and it was attached to a cuff of metal around his ankle, just above where his small foot poked sockless into a worn-out shoe. The chain was attached to the barn’s central support post.

  “Goddamn,” Daddy said, then turned on Bill. “You’ve chained him.”

  “I owe you, Jacob. But like I said, I got a family. Girls. Mose always seemed a good nigger to me, but a favor only goes so far. He stays here, he wears the chain. Hell, he’s got it all right. He eats good cookin’ and shits in a can over there. I have it emptied every day. And he don’t want for water.”

  I could see Daddy was exasperated, but he sighed and said, “All right. Let me talk to him, just me and my boy.”

  “Your boy can know what I can’t?”

  “If you don’t mind, Bill.”

  “I mind, but I’ll do ’er. Jacob, you get this nigger out of here pretty damn quick.”

  “That’s the plan,” Daddy said.

  Mr. Smoote left out, leaving the barn door slightly open. Daddy went over and touched Mose’s shoulder.

  “I don’t unnersta
n’, Missuh Jacob,” Mose said. “You knows I didn’t do nuttin’ to no white womens. No coloreds neither.”

  “I know,” Daddy said. “Let’s sit down.”

  Daddy sat on the hay bale and Mose dragged his chain and sat on the other side of it. I went and leaned against the post that the chain was fastened to. From that angle, way the light was slicing in, I could see Mose’s ankle had been bleeding. There was a brown cake of blood below the metal cuff, just above where his shoe started.

  “I didn’t mean for this, Mose,” Daddy said.

  “Yessuh,” Mose said. “I ’spose not.”

  “I’ll get you out of here.”

  “Yessuh. Missuh Jacob?”

  “What, Mose?”

  “How come you done me like this?”

  “The purse, Mose.”

  “I fount it, Missuh Jacob. I tole you that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I wouldn’t hurt no white womens. I wouldn’t hurt nobody ’cept a fish, a coon, a possum. Somethin’ to eat. And I don’t eat no white womens. Coloreds neither.”

  “I know.”

  “You know, Missuh Jacob, but here I is.”

  Daddy looked at the dirt floor.

  “I could have run off that firs’ night, but I stayed here ’cause you asked me to, Missuh Jacob. Next day, him and a boy came put the chain on me.”

  “I thought you having the purse was evidence. Not that you did it, but that it was some kind of evidence.”

  “You done got that purse, Missuh Jacob. You don’t need me.”

  “Wait a minute. Boy? What boy helped chain you?”

  “Jes some white boy.”

  “Okay, Mose. Listen here. I’m gonna get this chain off of you, and I’m gonna let you go. We’re gonna take you home. Hear?”

  “Yessuh. I’d like that, I would.”

  Daddy got up. “Stay here a minute, son.”

  Daddy went out. Mose looked at me. He smiled. “You ’member that ole grennel you and me caught?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Had them teeth like a man. It really scart you. ’Member that?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I cooked it up fer us. ’Member that?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “It was good too. You don’t cook ’em right, they taste jes like cotton. But I done it good. We ate it on a stump down by the river. My boy was little, me and him used to do that. Sit down by the river and eat.”

  I started to ask him about his son, but considering all Daddy had told me, I thought it might not be the best idea. No use dredging up more bad things for Mose to think about.

  “You still got that coon dog?” I asked.

  “No, Missuh Harry, I don’t. That ole dog done gone on to his rewa’d. He was nigh on fifteen year ole when he done up and died. He couldn’t see none last year of his life. I had to hand-feed ’im. He couldn’t eben smell no mo.”

  Daddy and Mr. Smoote came in. Mr. Smoote had a hammer and chisel. “Get that off of him,” Daddy said.

  “You takin’ him away?” Mr. Smoote asked.

  “I am. And don’t mention he’s been here. Just keep on keepin’ it a secret.”

  “We even then?”

  “Yeah. And Bill, you tell that boy you hired to help put this chain on not to say nothin’ either.”

  “I done told him that.”

  “I mean it. I told you not to let no one know Mose was here, and you done told a boy.”

  Mr. Smoote made a noise in his throat like a hog makes when it pokes its nose into slop and snorts. He went over to Mose, put the chisel against where the cuff had been squeezed shut and pinned. He struck off the pin with one whack of the chisel and hammer.

  Daddy helped Mose up from the hay bale. “Let’s get you on home,” Daddy said.

  From our house it’s no big problem to walk through the deep woods, hit Preacher’s Road, take the trail down by the river to Mose’s shack. By car it took longer. We had to travel some distance. At first Mose and Daddy just sat, but after a while they talked fishing. It wasn’t until we were on the Preacher’s Road and nearly to the trail that the subject of the murder came up again.

  “It gonna be okay now, Missuh Jacob?” Mose asked.

  “You just go on about your business, Mose. I got the purse. You told me what you know. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “Well, I guess you had to do it.”

  “I’m sorry you had to stay at Bill’s.”

  “He done all right by me. ’Cept that chain. He fed me all right, but he didn’t empty that ole mess can much as he said.”

  “I didn’t figure he did,” Daddy said.

  We drove onto the trail that led down to the river. The trees were close and limbs lapped over the top of the car and bathed us in shadow. Daddy had to drive slow and careful because the trail was full of washouts and slippery with leaf mold.

  We drove down a good ways, parked, left the car, and walked down to the river with Mose, over to his shack. A cool wind was blowing off the brown churning river and it felt good, but carried with it the faint aroma of something gone to rot.

  “You need to come fish, Missuh Jacob,” Mose said.

  “It’s been a while.”

  “Sho has. You ’member when them ole Davis brothers down the river there poisoned the water with all them green walnuts, killed all them perch and bass. Even some of them big ole catfish?”

  “I do.”

  “I remember how mad you was. You said, ‘ ’At ain’t no way to do no fishin’,’ and you walloped one of ’em. You ’member that?”

  “Sure.”

  “You and me, we never did go in for them green walnuts or dynamitin’, did we?”

  “No, we didn’t, Mose. We just fished the way you’re supposed to. With a pole, line, hook, and patience.”

  “Yessuh, we did.”

  “Dem Davises you know they eventually turned they boat over and one of ’em drowned an other’n got snake-bit.”

  “I heard that.”

  “Now that’s somethin’, ain’t it, Missuh Jacob.”

  “It is.”

  “Now they ain’t no Davis brothers.”

  We walked him to his shack. He was limping as he went. When we got there he pushed the unlocked door open. It didn’t look any better inside than Mr. Smoote’s barn, except there wasn’t the smell and as many flies. It was just one room with a window near the door, and a window on the opposite side. One window had glass in it, the other just a thin strip of yellow oilcloth.

  Mose went inside and we stood in the doorway.

  “You gonna be all right, Mose?” Daddy asked.

  “Yessuh, Missuh Jacob.”

  “You got somethin’ to eat?”

  “I got couple cans a stuff. I’ll fish me up somethin’ too.”

  Mose got a small can off a shelf and pulled the lid free. He stuck his fingers in the black mess inside, bent over and rubbed it on the spot where the chain had cut his ankle. It was axle grease. Lot of folks used it back then to lubricate sores or help stop bleeding from minor wounds.

  When Mose was finished with that, he limped over to one of the two chairs he had and sat down at a small wood plank table. He looked even smaller than he had looked at Mr. Smoote’s place.

  “All right, then,” Daddy said. “Well, you take care, Mose.”

  “Yessuh. And you come to fish, bring the boy.”

  “I will.”

  As we were climbing into the car, Daddy said, “Ain’t no doubt, this hasn’t been my finest hour.”

  12

  As we bumped up the trail toward Preacher’s Road, I said, “What favor did you do Mr. Smoote? He didn’t sound like he was real grateful.”

  “He don’t like to think about it, son. One of his girls, the oldest one. She’s about nineteen now … we didn’t see her today.”

  “Mary Jean?”

  “That’s the one. I caught her with a colored boy, son. If you know what I mean.”

  I blushed. Daddy had never talked t
o me about such things.

  “I ain’t never told nobody but you. Not even your Mama. And you ain’t never gonna say, ’cause I’m askin’ you to keep your word, and I know you will. I figure there’s some things a man ought to be able to tell his son he don’t have to tell no one else and can’t.”

  “Yes sir. Is that why he chained Mose?”

  “Part of it. He don’t let that girl out of the house hardly no more. He’s afraid she’ll get with the colored. He figures she’s got a fever for it. I figure she’s just a little slutty to begin with, and that probably wasn’t her first time to dally. Colored or white, I can’t say. I don’t think Mary Jean’s all that choosy.”

  I filed that away.

  Daddy added, as if reading my mind, “You stay away from that gal, hear? She might have some kind of disease.”

  “Yes sir. I don’t want nothin’ to do with her … Daddy, what about the colored boy?”

  “She didn’t even know him. She met him down by the river, fishin’. She’d gone down there to do the same. They got to talkin’ about things, and I guess she figured she could talk to him about stuff she couldn’t talk to a white boy about. People figure colored haven’t got the morals whites got. But it ain’t that way at all, son. There’s just as many good coloreds as white, and just as many sorry. Most, white or colored, ain’t quite on one side altogether. They’re a mix. A good person is one where the mix turns out mostly for the better. But she got to talkin’, and he got to talkin’, and well, pretty soon they was doin’ more than talkin’. I was out lookin’ for Mrs. Benton’s cow. Widow lives up on the hill behind Bill. She come to me askin’ for help, so I went to lookin’. What I found was Mary Jean and that colored boy. I run him on. Told him not to come back. Mary Jean didn’t know his name, so that wouldn’t gonna come up. I told her to dress, and I took her home.”

  “And told her Daddy?”

  “I wasn’t gonna say nothin’. She told her Daddy. Just to hurt him, I figure. She’s got a mean streak in her, but then again, so does her Daddy. He’s walloped her hide pretty often.”