Stories of Erskine Caldwell (29 page)

Mr. John Turner will tell you I’m not the kind to go off and get into trouble. Ask Mr. John about me. He has known me all my life, and I’ve never given him or anybody else trouble.

When I took Betsy out of the stable that night after supper, Mr. John came out to the barnyard and asked me over again if I didn’t want to take the Texas saddle. That mare, Betsy, is a little rawboned, but I didn’t mind that. I told Mr. John I’d just as lief ride bareback. He said it was all right with him if I wanted to get sawn in two, and for me to go ahead and do like I pleased about it. He was standing right there all the time, rubbing Betsy’s mane, and trying to find out where I was going, without coming right out and asking me. But he knew all the time where I was going, because he knows all about me. I reckon he just wanted to have a laugh at me, but he couldn’t do that if I didn’t let on where I was headed. So he told me it was all right to ride his mare without a saddle if I didn’t want to be bothered with one, and I opened the gate and rode off down the road towards Bishop’s crossroads.

That was night before last — Thursday night. It was a little after dark then, but I could see Mr. John standing at the barnyard gate, leaning on it a little, and watching me ride off. I’d been plowing that day, over in the new ground, and I was dog-tired. That’s one reason why I didn’t gallop off like I always did on Sunday nights. I rode away slow, letting Betsy take her own good time, because I wasn’t in such a big hurry, after all. I had about two hours’ time to kill, and only a little over three miles to go. That’s why I went off like that.

II

Everybody knows I’ve been going to see Lud Moseley’s youngest daughter, Naomi. I was going to see her again that night. But I couldn’t show up there till about nine-thirty. Lud Moseley wouldn’t let me come to see her but once a week, on Sunday nights, and night before last was Thursday. I’d been there to see her three or four times before on Thursday nights that Lud Moseley didn’t know about. Naomi told me to come to see her on Thursday night. That’s why I had been going there when Lud Moseley said I couldn’t come to his house but once a week. Naomi told me to come anyway, and she had been coming out to the swing under the trees in the front yard to meet me.

I haven’t got a thing in the world against Lud Moseley. Mr. John Turner will tell you I haven’t, I don’t especially like him, but that’s to be expected, and he knows why. Once a week isn’t enough to go to see a girl you like a lot, like I do Naomi. And I reckon she likes me a little, or she wouldn’t tell me to come to see her on Thursday nights, when Lud Moseley told me not to come, Lud Moseley thinks if I go to see her more than once a week that maybe we’ll take it into our heads to go get married without giving him a chance to catch on. That’s why he said I couldn’t come to his house but once a week, on Sunday nights.

He’s fixing to have me sent to the penitentiary for twenty years for stealing his calico horse, Lightfoot. I reckon he knows good and well I didn’t steal the horse, but he figures he’s got a good chance to put me out of the way till he can get Naomi married to somebody else. That’s the way I figure it all out, because everybody in this part of the country who ever heard tell of me knows I’m not a horse thief. Mr. John Turner will tell you that about me. Mr. John knows me better than that. I’ve worked for him so long he even tried once to make me out as one of the family, but I wouldn’t let him do that.

So, night before last, Thursday night, I rode off from home bareback, on Betsy. I killed a little time down at the creek, about a mile down the road from where we live, and when I looked at my watch again, it was nine o’clock sharp. I got on Betsy and rode off towards Lud Moseley’s place. Everything was still and quiet around the house and barn. It was just about Lud’s bedtime then. I rode right up to the barnyard gate, like I always did on Thursday nights. I could see a light up in Naomi’s room, where she slept with her older sister, Mary Lee. We had always figured on Mary Lee’s being out with somebody else, or maybe being ready to go to sleep by nine-thirty. When I looked up at their window, I could see Naomi lying across her bed, and Mary Lee was standing beside the bed talking to her about something. That looked bad, because when Mary Lee tried to make Naomi undress and go to bed before she did, it always meant that it would take Naomi another hour or more to get out of the room, because she had to wait for Mary Lee to go to sleep before she could leave. She had to wait for Mary Lee to go to sleep, and then she had to get up and dress in the dark before she could come down to the front yard and meet me in the swing under the trees.

III

I sat there on Betsy for ten or fifteen minutes, waiting to see how Naomi was going to come out with her sister. I reckon if we had let Mary Lee in on the secret she would have behaved all right about it, but on some account or other Naomi couldn’t make up her mind to run the risk of it. There was a mighty chance that she would have misbehaved about it and gone straight and told Lud Moseley, and we didn’t want to run that risk.

After a while I saw Naomi get up and start to undress. I knew right away that that meant waiting another hour or longer for her to be able to come and meet me. The moon was starting to rise, and it was getting to be as bright as day out there in the barnyard. I’d been in the habit of opening the gate and turning Betsy loose in the yard, but I was scared to do it night before last. If Lud Moseley should get up for a drink of water or something, and happen to look out toward the barn and see a horse standing there, he would either think it was one of his and come out and lock it in the stalls, or else he would catch on it was me out there. Anyway, as soon as he saw Betsy, he would have known it wasn’t his mare, and there would have been the mischief to pay right there and then. So I opened the barn door and led Betsy inside and put her in the first empty stall I could find in the dark. I was scared to strike a light, because I didn’t know but what Lud Moseley would be looking out the window just at that time and see the flare of the match. I put Betsy in the stall, closed the door, and came back outside to wait for Naomi to find a chance to come out and meet me in the swing in the yard.

It was about twelve-thirty or one o’clock when I got ready to leave for home. The moon had been clouded, and it was darker than everything in the barn. I couldn’t see my hand in front of me, it was that dark. I was scared to strike a light that time, too, and I felt my way in and opened the stall door and stepped inside to lead Betsy out. I couldn’t see a thing, and when I found her neck, I thought she must have slipped her bridle like she was always doing when she had to stand too long to suit her. I was afraid to try to ride her home without a lead of some kind, because I was scared she might shy in the barnyard and start tearing around out there and wake up Lud Moseley. I felt around on the ground for the bridle, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Then I went back to the stall door and felt on it, thinking I might have taken it off myself when I was all excited at the start, and there was a halter hanging up. I slipped it over her head and led her out. It was still so dark I couldn’t see a thing, and I had to feel my way outside and through the barnyard gate. When I got to the road, I threw a leg over her, and started for home without wasting any more time around Lud Moseley’s place. I thought she trotted a little funny, because she had a swaying swing that made me slide from side to side, and I didn’t have a saddle pommel to hold on to. I was all wrought up about getting away from there without getting caught up with, and I didn’t think a thing about it. But I got home all right and slipped the halter off and put her in her stall. It was around one or two o’clock in the morning then.

The next morning after breakfast, when I was getting ready to catch the mules and gear them up to start plowing in the new ground again, Lud Moseley and three or four other men, including the sheriff, came riding lickety-split up the road from town and hitched at the rack. Mr. John came out and slapped the sheriff on the back and told him a funny story. They carried on like that for nearly half an hour, and then the sheriff asked Mr. John where I was. Mr. John told him I was getting ready to go off to the new ground, where we had planted a crop of corn that spring, and then the sheriff said he had a warrant for me. Mr. John asked him what for, a joke or something? And the sheriff told him it was for stealing Lud Moseley’s calico horse, Lightfoot. Mr. John laughed at him, because he still thought it just a joke, but the sheriff pulled out the paper and showed it to him. Mr. John still wouldn’t believe it, and he told them there was a mix-up somewhere, because, he told them, I wouldn’t steal a horse. Mr. John knows I’m not a horse thief. I’ve never been in any kind of trouble before in all my life.

They brought me to town right away and put me in the cellroom at the sheriff’s jail. I knew I hadn’t stole Lud Moseley’s horse, and I wasn’t scared a bit about it. But right after they brought me to town, they all rode back and the sheriff looked in the barn and found Lud Moseley’s calico horse, Lightfoot, in Betsy’s stall. Mr. John said things were all mixed up, because he knew I didn’t steal the horse, and he knew I wouldn’t do it. But the horse was there, the calico one, Lightfoot, and his halter was hanging on the stall door. After that they went back to Lud Moseley’s and measured my foot tracks in the barnyard, and then they found Betsy’s bridle. Lud Moseley said I had rode Mr. John’s mare over there, turned her loose, and put the bridle on his Lightfoot and rode him off. They never did say how come the halter came to get to Mr. John’s stable, then. Lud Moseley’s stall door was not locked, and it wasn’t broken down. It looks now like I forgot to shut it tight when I put Betsy in, because she got out someway and came home of her own accord sometime that night.

Lud Moseley says he’s going to send me away for twenty years where I won’t have a chance to worry him over his youngest daughter, Naomi. He wants her to marry a widowed farmer over beyond Bishop’s crossroads who runs twenty plows and who’s got a big white house with fifteen rooms in it. Mr. John Turner says he’ll hire the best lawyer in town to take up my case, but it don’t look like it will do much good, because my footprints are all over Lud Moseley’s barnyard, and his Lightfoot was in Mr. John’s stable.

I reckon I could worm out of it someway, if I made up my mind to do it. But I don’t like to do things like that. It would put Naomi in a bad way, because if I said I was there seeing her, and had put Betsy in the stall to keep her quiet, and took Lightfoot out by mistake in the dark when I got ready to leave — well, it would just look bad, that’s all. She would just have to say she was in the habit of slipping out of the house to see me after everybody had gone to sleep, on Thursday nights, and it would just look bad all around. She might take it into her head some day that she’d rather marry somebody else than me, and by that time she’d have a bad name for having been mixed up with me — and slipping out of the house to meet me after bedtime.

Naomi knows I’m no horse thief. She knows how it all happened — that I rode Lud Moseley’s calico horse, Lightfoot, off by mistake in the dark, and left the stall door unfastened, and Betsy got out and came home of her own accord.

Lud Moseley has been telling people all around the courthouse as how he is going to send me away for twenty years so he can get Naomi married to that widowed farmer who runs twenty plows. Lud Moseley is right proud of it, it looks like to me, because he’s got me cornered in a trap, and maybe he will get me sent away sure enough before Naomi gets a chance to tell what she knows is true.

But, somehow, I don’t know if she’ll say it if she does get the chance. Everybody knows I’m nothing but a hired man at Mr. John Turner’s, and I’ve been thinking that maybe Naomi might not come right out and tell what she knows, after all.

I’d come right out and explain to the sheriff how the mix-up happened, but I sort of hate to mention Naomi’s name in the mess. If it had been a Sunday night, instead of night before last, a Thursday, I could — well, it would just sound too bad, that’s all.

If Naomi comes to town and tells what she knows, I won’t say a word to stop her, because that’ll mean she’s willing to say it and marry me.

But if she stays at home, and lets Lud Moseley and that widowed farmer send me away for twenty years, I’ll just have to go, that’s all.

I always told Naomi I’d do anything in the world for her, and I reckon this will be the time when I’ve got to prove whether I’m a man of my word, or not.

(First published in
Vanity Fair
)

W
HEN
I
SAW HER
for the first time, she was staring several hundred miles away. She was standing on the other side of the street near the corner, holding a folded newspaper in front of her. It had been folded until the want ads were the only print showing, and it looked like a paper printed without headlines. Suddenly she blinked her eyes several times and looked at the paper she was holding. Her knees and legs were rigidly stiff, but her body swayed backward and forward like someone weak from hunger. Her shoulders drooped downward and downward until they seemed to be merely the upper part of her arms.

She glanced at the ads every few moments and then searched halfheartedly for a number on one of the doors behind her. Once she opened her pocketbook and read something written on the back of a crumpled envelope. There were numbers on most of the doors, but either she could not see the numerals plainly enough, or she could not find the one she was looking for — I didn’t know what the trouble was. I couldn’t see her face. Her head had dropped forward, and her chin sank to the collar of her dress. She would look up for a moment, and then her head would suddenly drop downward again and hang there until she could raise it.

She was standing across the street within reach of one of the white-way poles. She could have leaned against the pole or else found a place to sit down. I didn’t know why she did neither. I don’t suppose she herself knew.

I was standing on the shady side of the street waiting for something. I don’t know what I was waiting for. It wasn’t important, anyway. I didn’t have anything to do, and I wasn’t going anywhere. I was just standing there when I looked across the street and saw her with the folded paper in her hands. There were hundreds of other people in the street, all of them hurrying somewhere. She and I were the only ones standing still.