Stories of Erskine Caldwell (69 page)

Up the road he could see lights in Governor Gil’s house. There was a light in the kitchen, as usual, and one in the front part of the house too. Upstairs, two or three rooms were lighted for the first time since he could remember.

Just when he was expecting his wife and children to get there any moment, he heard somebody running down the road. He got up and listened as the sound came closer. It was somebody running fast, because the sound came closer every second.

He ran out to the road to see who it was. At first he thought it might be Daisy, but he soon knew it wasn’t, because a boy called out to him.

“Mr. Walter! Mr. Walter!”

“Who’s that?” he shouted back.

A Negro houseboy stopped, panting, in the road beside him.

“What’s the matter, Lawson?”

“Mr. Walter, Governor said to tell you if you ever raise another hell cat like Miss Daisy, he’ll chop your head off. Now, Mr. Walter, I didn’t say it! Please, sir, don’t think I said it! It was Governor who told me to tell you that! You know I wouldn’t say that myself, don’t you, Mr. Walter?”

“What’s the matter up there, Lawson?” Walter asked the boy.

“I don’t know exactly, Mr. Walter, except that Governor started yelling upstairs a while ago, and he hasn’t stopped yet. He told me to telephone for the doctor and the lawyer to come in a hurry. He hardly stopped yelling long enough to tell me, either. Soon as I telephoned for them, he told me to run down here as fast as I could and tell you what I told you.”

“Was Miss Daisy up there then?” Walter asked.

“I reckon it was Miss Daisy who made him yell,” Lawson said hesitatingly.

“Why?”

“I don’t know if Governor wants me to tell you,” Lawson said. “He only told me to tell you what I already told you, Mr. Walter.”

“You’d better tell me, Lawson. What was it?”

“Miss Daisy flew into him and pretty near bit the daylights out of him. Governor was yelling and nursing his hurt so much, he didn’t have time to say much else.”

Walter started back to the porch to sit down and wait for his wife to come home. He could not keep from laughing a little, but he tried to hold himself back so he could laugh all the more with his wife when she got there.

Lawson was still standing outside the yard. He turned around to tell the boy to go on back.

“What else did Governor Gil say, Lawson?” he asked him.

“I didn’t hear him say much else, except Governor said it’ll be a mighty small day when he tries to handsel a hellcat like Miss Daisy again.”

Walter went to the porch and sat down. He leaned back and started to laugh. He could not wait for his wife any longer. He leaned back and laughed until he slid out of the chair.

(First published in the
New Yorker
)

T
HE WATER WAS UP
again. It had been raining for almost two whole days, and the creek was full to the banks. Dawn had broken gray that morning, and for the first time that week the sky was blue and warm.

Les pulled off his shirt and unbuckled his pants. Les never had to bother with underwear, because as soon as it was warm enough in the spring to go barefooted he hid his union suit in a closet and left it there until fall. His mother was not alive, and his father never bothered about the underclothes.

“I wish we had a shovel to dig out some of this muck,” he said. “Every time it rains this hole fills up with this stuff. I’d go home and get a shovel, but if they saw me they’d make me stay there and do something.”

While Les was hanging his shirt and pants on a bush, I waded out into the yellow water. The muck on the bottom was ankle deep, and there were hundreds of dead limbs stuck in it. I pulled out some of the largest and threw them on the other bank out of the way.

“How’s the water, Jack?” Les asked. “How deep is it this time?”

I waded out to the middle of the creek where the current was the strongest. The yellow water came almost up to my shoulders.

“Nearly neck deep,” I said. “But there’s about a million dead limbs stuck in the bottom. Hurry up and help me throw them out.”

Les came splashing in. The muddy water gurgled and sucked around his waist.

“I’ll bet somebody comes down here every day and pitches these dead limbs in here,” Les said, making a face. “I don’t see how else they could get here. Dead tree limbs don’t fall into a creek this fast. Somebody is throwing them in, and I’ll bet a pretty he doesn’t live a million miles away, either.”

“Maybe Old Howes does it, Les.”

“Sure, he does it. He’s the one I’m talking about. I’ll bet anything he comes down and throws limbs in every day.”

Les stepped on a sharp limb. He held his nose and squeezed his eyes and ducked under and pulled it out.

“You know what?” Les said.

“What?”

“Old Howes told Pa we scared his cows last Saturday. He said we made them run so much he couldn’t get them to let down their milk Saturday night.

“This creek bottom isn’t his. Old Howes doesn’t own anything down here except that pasture on the other side of the fence. We haven’t even been on the other side of the fence this year, have we?”

“I haven’t seen Old Howes’s cows all summer. If I did see them, I wouldn’t run them. He just told Pa that because he doesn’t want us to come swimming in the creek.”

Pieces of dead bark and curled chips suddenly came floating down the creek. Somewhere up there the trash had broken loose from a limb or something across the water. I held my arms V-shaped and caught the bark and chips and threw them out of the way.

Les said something, diving down to pull up a dead limb. The muck on the bottom of the creek was so deep we could not take a step without first pulling our feet out of the sticky mud; otherwise we would have fallen flat on our faces in the water. The muck had a stink like a pig pen.

Les threw the big limb out of sight.

“If Old Howes ever comes down while we’re here and tells us to get out of the creek, let’s throw muck at him. Are you game, Jack? Wouldn’t you like to do that to him just once?”

“That’s what we ought to do to him, but we’d better not, Les. He would go straight and tell my folks, and your pa.”

“I’m not scared of Old Howes,” Les said, making a face. “He hasn’t got me buffaloed. He wouldn’t do anything. He’s scared to tell anybody. He knows we’d catch him some time and mudcake him.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He told on me that time I caught his drake and put it in that chicken run of his.”

“That was a long time —” Les stopped and listened.

Somebody had stepped on a dead limb behind the bushes. The crack of the wood was loud enough to be heard above the splashing and gurgling of the creek.

“What’s that?” both of us said. “Who’s that?” Les asked me.

“Listen!” I said. “Duck down and be quiet.”

Behind the bushes we could hear someone walking on dead twigs and dry leaves. Both of us squatted down in the water until only our heads were above it.

“Who is it?” Les whispered to me.

I shook my head, holding my nose under the water.

The yellow water swirled and gurgled through the tree roots beside us. The roots had been washed free of earth by the high waters many years before, and now they were old-looking and covered with bark.

Les squatted lower and lower until only his eyes and the top of his head were showing. He held his nose under the water with both hands. The water was high, and its swiftness and muddy-heaviness made gurgling sounds that echoed up and down the creek.

Suddenly the bushes parted, and Jenny came through. When Les saw her, his eyes popped open and he jerked his head above the water to get his breath. The noise he made when the water bubbled scared all three of us for a moment.

Jenny was Old Howes’s daughter. She was about our age, possibly a year or two older.

Les saw her looking at our clothes hanging on the bushes. He nudged me with his elbow.

“What are you doing down here?” Les said gruffly, trying to scare her.

“Can’t I come if I want to?”

“You can’t come down here when we’re in swimming. You’re not a boy.”

“I can come if I wish to, smarty,” Jenny said. “This creek doesn’t belong to you.”

“It doesn’t belong to you, either,” Les said, making a face. “What are you going to do about that?”

“All right,” Jenny said, “if you are going to be so mean about it, Leslie Blake, I’ll take your clothes and hide them where you’ll never find them again as long as you live. What are you going to do about that?”

Jenny reached for the clothes. She grabbed Les’s pants and my shirt and union suit.

Les caught my arm and pulled me towards the bank. We couldn’t hurry at first, because we had to jerk our feet out of the muck before we could move at all.

“Let’s duck her, Jack,” Les whispered. “Let’s give her a good ducking. Come on.”

We crawled up the bank and caught Jenny just as she was starting to run through the bushes with our clothes. Les locked his arms around her waist and I caught her arms and pulled as hard as I could.

“I’ll scream!” Jenny said. “If you don’t stop, I’ll scream at the top of my lungs. Papa is in the pasture, and he’ll come right away. You know what he’ll do to both of you, don’t you?”

“We’re not afraid of anybody,” Les said, scowling and trying to scare her.

I put my hand over her mouth and held her with one arm locked around her neck. Together we pulled and dragged her back to the bank beside the creek.

“Don’t you want to duck her, Jack?” Les said. “Don’t you think we ought to? She’s been telling Old Howes tales about us. She’s a tattletale tit.”

“We ought to duck her, all right,” I said. “But suppose she goes and tells on us about that?”

“When we get through ducking her, she won’t tell any more tales on us. We’ll duck her until she promises and crosses her heart never to tell anybody. She’s the one who’s been throwing dead limbs into the creek every day. I’ll bet anything she’s the one who’s been doing it.”

Jenny was helpless while we held her. Les had her around the waist with both arms, and I still held her neck locked in the crook of my left arm. She tried to bite my hand over her mouth, but every time she tried to hurt me, I squeezed her neck so hard she had to stop.

I was a little afraid to duck Jenny, because once we had ducked a colored boy named Bisco, and it had almost drowned him. We ducked Bisco so many times he couldn’t breathe, and he became limp all over. We had to stretch him out on the ground and roll him over and over, and all the time we were doing that, yellow creek water was running out of his mouth. I was afraid we might drown Jenny. I didn’t know what would happen to us if we did that. “I know what let’s do to her, Les,” I said. “What?”

“Let’s mud-cake her.”

“What’s the matter with ducking her? It will scare her and make her stop throwing dead limbs into the creek. It’ll stop her from telling tales about us, too.”

“We’d better not duck her, Les,” I said. “Remember the time we ducked Bisco? We nearly drowned him. I don’t want anything like that to happen again.”

Les thought a while, looking at Jenny’s back. She was kicking and scratching all the time, but she couldn’t begin to hurt us, and we had her so she couldn’t get loose.

“All right,” Les said. “We’ll mud-cake her then. That’s just as good as ducking, and it’ll teach her a lesson. It’ll make her stop being a tattletale tit.”

“She’s going to tell on us anyway, so we’d better do a good job of it this time. But it ought to make her stop throwing dead limbs into the swimming hole, anyway.”

“She won’t tell on us after we get through with her,” Les said. “She won’t tell anybody. She won’t even tell Old Howes. Ducking and mud-caking always stops kids from telling tales. It’s the only way to cure it.”

“All right,” I said, “Let’s do it to her. She needs ducking, or mud-caking, or something. Somebody has got to do it to her, and we’re the right ones to make a good job of it. I’ll bet she won’t bother us again after we get through with her.”

Les threw Jenny on the ground beside the bank, locking her arms behind her back and holding her face in the earth so she couldn’t make any noise. Les had to straddle her neck to keep her still.

“Take off her clothes, Jack,” Les said. “I’ve got her. She can’t get away as long as I’m holding her.”

I reached down to pull off her dress, and she kicked me full in the stomach with both feet. When I fell backward and tried to sit up, there was no breath left in me. I opened my mouth and tried to yell at Les, but I couldn’t even whisper.

“What’s the matter, Jack?” Les said, turning his head and looking at me.

I got up on both knees and doubled over, holding my stomach with both arms.

“What’s the matter with you, Jack?” he said. “Did she kick you?”

Les’s back had been turned and he had not seen what Jenny had done to me.

“Did she kick me!” I said weakly. “It must have been her, but it felt like a mule. She knocked all of the wind out of me.”

“Sit on her legs, then,” Les said. “She can’t kick you if you do that.”

I ran down to the side of the creek and came back with a double handful of yellow muck. When I dug it out of the creek, it had made a sucking sound, and the odor was worse than any that ever came out of a pig pen. The muck in the creek stank worse than anything I had ever smelled. It was nothing but rotted leaves and mud, but it smelled like decayed eggs and a lot of other things.

I got Jenny’s dress off and tossed it on the bushes so it would not get covered with muck. Les was able to hold her arms and cover her mouth at the same time by then, because she was not nearly so strong as either of us.

“She’s got underwear on, Les,” I said.

“Sure she has,” Les said. “All girls wear underclothes. That’s what makes them so sissy.”

“You’re not talking about me, are you?” I said, looking at him. “Because if you are —”

“I’m talking about her,” Les said. “I know you have to wear the stuff because your people make you do it. But girls like to have it on. They don’t want to go without it. That’s why girls are so sissy.”

“All right,” I said, “but don’t try to get nasty with me, because I’ll —”