The Bottoms

10

On the way home in the car the windows were rolled down and the October wind was fresh and ripe with the smell of the woods. My belly was full of pie and lemonade and I was cozy and content. I was thinking of Louise Canerton, and I found myself wondering how she would look without her dress. The thought bothered me and I tried not to dwell on it. But I kept thinking about her bosom, her long legs and how they would feel beneath my hands.

Finally I prayed silently to God, but all the while I was thinking of her naked. I wondered if God saw her naked. He must. What did he think about that? Did he like what he saw? Was there no consideration for what he saw? Didn’t he create her? If so, why did he make ugly people?

I believe it was at that point, although I didn’t realize it at the time, my ideas of God and religion were starting to change, even erode.

As we wound through the woods along the dirt road that led to our house, I began to feel sleepy.

Tom had already nodded off with her dirt-stained ghost mask clutched in her hands. I leaned against the side of the car and began to halfway doze. In time, I realized Mama and Daddy were talking.

“He had her purse?” Mama said.

“Yeah,” Daddy said. “He had it, and he’d taken money from it.”

“Could it be him?”

“He says he was fishing, saw the purse and her dress floating, snagged the purse with his fishing line. The dress washed on by him. He saw there was money in the purse, and he took it. Figured a purse in the river wasn’t something anyone was going to find, and there wasn’t any name in it, and it was just five dollars going to waste. Said he didn’t even consider that someone had been murdered.”

“So you believe him?”

“I believe him. I’ve known Old Mose all my life. He practically lives on that river in that boat of his. He wouldn’t harm a fly. Besides, the man’s over seventy years old and not in the best of health. He’s had a hell of a life. His wife ran off forty years ago and he’s never gotten over it. His son disappeared when he was a youngster. Whoever raped this woman had to be pretty strong. She was young enough, and from the way her body looked, she put up a pretty good fight. Man did this had to be strong enough to… well, she was cut up pretty bad. Same as the other woman.”

“Oh dear.”

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“How did you come by the purse?”

“I went to see Mose. Like I always do when I’m down on the river. It was layin’ on the table in his shack. I had to arrest him. I don’t know I should have now. Maybe I should have taken the purse and said I found it. I believe him. But I don’t have evidence one way or the other.”

“Didn’t Mose have some trouble before?”

“When his wife ran off some thought he’d killed her. She was fairly loose. That was the rumor. Nothing ever came of it.”

“But he could have done it?”

“I suppose.”

“And what about his boy? What happened there?”

“Telly was the boy’s name. He was addle-headed. Mose claimed that’s why his wife run off. She was embarrassed by that addle-headed boy. Kid disappeared four or five years later and Mose never talked about it. Some thought he killed him too. But that’s just rumor. White folks talkin’ about colored folks like they do. I believe his wife ran off. The boy wasn’t much of a thinker, and he may have run off too. He liked to roam the woods and river. He might have drowned, fallen in some hole somewhere and never got out.”

“But none of that makes it look good for Mose, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“What are you gonna do, Jacob?”

“I don’t know. I was afraid to lock him up over at the courthouse. It isn’t a real jail anyway, and word gets around a colored man was involved, there won’t be any real thinking on the matter. I talked Bill Smoote into letting me keep Mose over at his bait house.”

“Couldn’t Mose just run away?”

“I suppose. But he’s not in that good a health, hon. And he trusts me to investigate, clear him. That’s what makes me nervous. I don’t know how. I thought about talking to the county boys that cover Pearl Creek. They have more experience, but they have a tendency to be a little emotional themselves.”

“You mean Red.”

“Yeah. He’s rumored to be in the Klan, or was.”

“You don’t know that for a fact,” Mama said.

“If he ain’t got an official hood in his drawer,” Daddy said, “you can bet he’s got one in spirit.”

“He ain’t always been that way.”

“No. But things change… things can happen.”

Mama quickly changed the subject. “But if it’s not Mose, who is it?”

“After I was told about Janice Willman, I went over and took a look at the body. Same sort of thing. She’s been cut on, and tied with one leg pulled up to her neck, rope around her head and ankle. That seems to be a thing he does to every one of ’em, some kind of tie-up.”

“Does that mean anything, tying them up like that?”

“I don’t know. Doc Tinn thinks so. When I showed him this body and talked to him about it, he said he believes these fellas have a pattern. He’d done some reading on it, and he thinks they do pretty much the same thing over and over. Little difference here and there, but the same thing. Jack the Ripper did his killings the same, ’cept each one got more vicious than the last. Doc Tinn told me about some others he’s read about, and now these. All cut up. All tied or bound up in some kind of way, and all of them in or near the river. Or they had been in the river. He calls them pattern killers. He said he hoped to write some kind of paper on it, but figures being colored he hasn’t got a chance in hell of doing anything important with it.”

“That doesn’t explain why,” Mama said.

“No. It doesn’t.”

I began to drift off again. I thought of Mose. He had white blood in him. Red in his hair. Eyes green as spring leaves. Skin dark as molasses. I had waved at him not so long ago. Sometimes, when Daddy had a good day hunting or fishing, he’d go by there and give Mose a squirrel or some fish. Mose was always glad to see us.

I thought of the Goat Man again. I recalled him standing below the Swinging Bridge, looking up through the shadows at me. I thought of him near our house, watching. The Goat Man had killed those women. Not Mose. I was certain of it.

It was there in the car, battered by the cool October wind, that I began to formulate a plan to find the Goat Man and free Mose. I thought on it for several days after, and I begun to come up with something that seemed like a good idea.

Looking back on it now, I realize just how foolish and wild it was. Inspired by one of Mrs. Canerton’s books, The Count of Monte Cristo.

But my plan, foolish as it was, never came to pass.

Next day Daddy went to the barbershop and Mama had me stay home with Tom to help her do the canning. We did that all morning and well after lunch. Late in the afternoon, Mama sent Tom and me out to play and she set about putting up the vegetables we had canned in the cabinets.

Although it’s called canning, we did it in jars. It was a lot of work, sterilizing jars, packing them with cooked vegetables, sealing them with paraffin and lids, setting them aside. I was glad to get away from it all. Tom and I played a game of chase at the edge of the woods, and finally took to resting under the oak. Tom fell asleep in the chair there right away, and I walked to the well to get a drink of water. I was still cooking on my plan to rescue Mose, although I was beginning to wonder what I was rescuing him from. Where would I take him?

I cranked up the bucket and used the dipper to drink, and as I was putting it aside, I heard a car roll up around front. I thought it was most likely Daddy, maybe coming home early if the shop wasn’t well attended, so I went around the edge of the house to see.

When I got there I saw the car was a black dented Ford. The man that got out was wearing a large gray cowboy hat and a holstered gun on his hip. He stood in front of the Ford with his right knee cocked forward and he was working the ground with the toe of his boot, way he had the day I first seen him. He wore a long-sleeve shirt with the sleeves buttoned down tight. There was a sweat ring around his neck. He was the same man Daddy had talked to outside of Pearl Creek. The one he had saved from a suck hole when they were both young. Red.

He saw me and smiled. “How’re you doin’, partner?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Your Daddy here?”

“My Mama,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, “well, that’ll do. Tell her I’m here, will you?”

I went inside and told Mama. When she went to the front door and saw Red standing in the yard, I noticed a change in her expression. I can’t describe it to you. It was surprise, but something else too. She reached up and gently touched her hair, then her hands dropped to her sides and she smoothed her dress.

“Red,” she said.

“May Lynn. You’re as lovely as ever.”

She colored slightly. “Jacob isn’t here.”

Red stood in the yard and looked around, as if Daddy might appear out of the afternoon air. “Say he ain’t.”

Of course he wasn’t. I had already told him Daddy wasn’t in.

“Well now, maybe we could chat a few minutes,” Red said. “He be in soon?”

“Yes,” Mama said. Then added: “Very soon.”

“May I come in?”

Mama hesitated. She looked at me. She said, “Harry, run on with you. We’re gonna do a little grown-up talk.”

I hesitated, but went out on the screened back porch and sat in the swing. When Red came in and Mama shut the door, the air draft made the door to the screen porch push open a bit. I got up to shut it, pushed it almost to, then hesitated. I knew it wasn’t polite to listen in on other people’s conversations, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Well, sit down,” Mama said. She sounded uncomfortable and unsure of herself in her own house. I had never known her to sound like that before.

“Thank you,” Red said. I heard chairs scrape, then there was a long moment of silence.

Mama said, “I could make some coffee.”

“No. That’s all right. He’ll be back soon?”

“I can’t say exactly. He cuts hair until there isn’t any to cut.”

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, it has.”

“Nice house.”

“Thank you. It isn’t much really. Jacob and I built it. I nailed down the floors myself. My Mom and Dad helped us.”

“Floor looks sturdy,” Red said.

“Thanks.”

“How are your mother and father? I haven’t seen them in years.”

“They moved to North Texas few years back. Mama went there to be near my sister Ida. Ida was ill and had children to take care of. Ida got better, but Daddy died.”

“I’m sorry. How’s your Mama?”

“Spunky as ever. We’ve been writing each other a lot. She may move back to be near us.”

“I see. I guess that’s good.”

There was a long silence. A bumblebee buzzed behind me, and I turned to see him at the screen, bouncing up against it.

Mama broke the silence. “Could you tell me what it is you want, and I can tell Jacob?”

“I really should talk to him myself.”

“Is it about this murder business? The colored women?”

“Yeah.”

“Jacob says you don’t want him bothering with it.”

“First of all, the body wasn’t in his county.”

“It was found in the bottoms here.”

“Yes, but he had the body brought to Pearl Creek. To have a bunch of niggers tell him what had happened to her. You don’t have to be one of the city boys to know what happened to her.”

“But he wanted to know who she was, as well as what happened to her.”

“Doc Stephenson could have told him.”

“Doc Stephenson is a drunk, and a fool. And a lot less likely to know who she is.”

“He knows every nigger in these parts. He ain’t got nothing against niggers. And neither do I.”

“Stephenson is still a drunk and a fool.”

“I don’t want to argue with you, May Lynn. There was a time-”

“If the body was found here, under Jacob’s jurisdiction, what’s it matter, Red? What business is it of yours? You say it isn’t Jacob’s business, but it seems it’s more his business than yours. He drove her to your county to identify her, but she was murdered here.”

“We don’t want the niggers stirred up, May Lynn. That’s all. They got to know their place, and when Jacob starts treating them with the same concern, the same respect as white folks, then you could have problems.”

“You really believe that?”

“I do… There’s a rumor Jacob’s arrested a nigger for the murders.”

“That’s not true.”

“Story goes he’s hidin’ this nigger out. What I want to say to Jacob is this. Give the nigger up. ’Cause he don’t, it’ll go bad for him.”

“Jacob hasn’t arrested anyone for the murder. And if he has, what would be the problem with that?”

“None. We just want him to give the murderer up.”

“Just a few minutes ago you didn’t care about a colored being killed. Now it’s a concern.”

“I’m concerned a white woman – like yourself – could be next. A nigger gone on a streak like that, he won’t be satisfied with just black women. He’s gonna want a white one before long. One he killed had white blood in her.”

“Now it matters because she had white blood. I always thought folks like you thought a drop of colored blood made a person colored, no matter how much white was in them.”

“Well, I don’t think that. There are degrees. White blood can dominate. It’s the way you look makes you a nigger. How you live.”

“A life is a life, Red. Dark skin. Light skin. Anything in between. That’s what concerns Jacob.”

“Way it looks, May Lynn, is Jacob’s got the man did these murders and he’s protectin’ him ’cause he’s a nigger.”

“You know that’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t know that. Doc Stephenson claims Jacob’s pretty tight with the niggers.”

“Doc Stephenson’s an idiot.”

Red laughed. “He may be at that. I’m here to help, May Lynn. I owe Jacob. I’m here to warn Jacob.”

“I don’t think you are. I think this has to do with somethin’ else besides him pullin’ you out of a suck hole.”

“It does. I owe him for another reason. And there’s you. I don’t want nothing to happen that could come down on you too.”

“That’s considerate of you… now. Considering.”

“I was a damn fool…”

“Sssshhhhh,” Mama said. “Don’t speak of it.”

Red was silent for a while. After what seemed like a change of seasons, he said, “I want Jacob to know it could get so folks come to see him.”

“Are you talking about the Klan?” Mama asked.

“I’m just sayin’…”

“Red. I heard you’d turned bitter. That you was sympathetic to that bunch of sheet-wearing cowards-”

“Careful with your words, May Lynn.”

“I don’t need to be careful. I would have never thought it of you. I knew you when we were young, Red. I knew you to carry food down in the bottoms to that poor old colored lady, Miss Maggie.”

“We was just kids.”

“That woman practically raised you, Red.”

“She was just a nigger worked for my Daddy. I fed Daddy’s dogs too.”

“You know she more than worked for your Daddy. You suckled at her breast. Played with her kids like they was your own kin. Then your Daddy got old and so did she. She was almost your mother. She was more of a mother than your mother. And she was more of a wife to your Daddy than your mother.”

“That’s enough!”

I heard a slam, as if a hand had been slapped on the table, a chair slid back. I pushed open the door and rushed in.

“You okay, Mama?”

“Yes, hon. I’m okay.”

Red was standing at the table, his hat in his hand. His face red as his hair, his knee cocked forward slightly, turning the toe of his boot against the floors he’d not too long ago bragged on. He glared at Mama. “You done come to be just like Jacob,” Red said.

“And you’d be lucky if you were anything like him,” Mama said. “You got somethin’ in you always been there, Red. It wasn’t just me turned you like they say.”

“You didn’t help.”

Red looked at me. His hand shook as he put on his hat.

“There was a time when I thought I might should have done different than I did, Red,” Mama said. “For just a moment. But I come to a understanding with myself long ago that I was wrong about that. Still, I considered you a good man, Red. Today, I don’t know. I do know this. Jacob is ten times the man you are or ever will be.”

Red opened his mouth as if to speak. He looked at me and the steam went out of him. He trembled slightly.

“I could say somethin’,” he said.

“You could. And if you must, say it. But I’ve said my somethin’, and I’ve got one more thing to say. I see you’re still wearin’ your shirts with the sleeves rolled down.”

There was a movement in Red’s face that frightened me. But it was just a twitch, then it was gone.

“You tell Jacob what I said, hear? He’s been warned. I’ve paid my debt.”

“You think that’s paying a debt, you’re wrong, Red. Let me tell you somethin’. Now you’ve been warned. Don’t you ever step foot on this property again. You hear?”

“I hear.”

Red went to the door, turned, looked at me and Mama. “That’s a fine-looking boy you got there, May Lynn. And you got that little girl out there too. So innocent. I believe she’s gonna look a lot like you. Already starting to get your face. I hate to think of you bringing them up to think niggers are the same as us. It’ll just bring them grief, put them on the same level as the niggers. You too, May Lynn.”

“Good day, Constable,” Mama said.

Red unconsciously rubbed his left hand along his right sleeve, went out without shutting the door, got in his dented black Ford and drove away.

A thin plume of dust followed after the car and drifted in the air long after he was gone.