The Outlaw Album: Stories

THE HORSE IN OUR HISTORY

The body fell within a shout of a house that still stands. A house shown up rudely in morning brightness, a dull small box gone shabby along the roof edge, with tar shingles hanging frayed over a gutter that has parted from the eaves and rolled under like a slackened lip. The yard between the house and the railroad tracks has become an undistinguished green, the old oaks have grown fatter with the decades, and new neighbors have built closer. At the bottom of the yard near the tracks there are burnished little stumps where elms that likely witnessed everything had been culled in the 1960s, probably, after the Dutch blight moved into our town and caught them all.

The body fell within a shout, and surely those in the house must have heard something. Shouts, pleas, cries, or brute laughter carrying loudly on that summer night before the war, here in the town this was then, of lulled hearts and wincing spirits, a democratic mess of abashed citizenry hard to rouse toward anything but winked eyes and tut-tuts on “negro matters.” A Saturday in summer, the town square bunched with folks in for trading from the hills and hollers, hauling okra, tomatoes, chickens, goats, and alfalfa honey. Saturday crowds closed the streets around the square to traffic, and it became a huge veranda of massed amblers. Long hellos and nodded good-byes. Farmers in bib overalls with dirty seats, sporting dusted and crestfallen hats, raising pocket hankies already made stiff and angular with salt dried from sweat wiped during the hot wagon ride to town. In the shops and shade there were others, wearing creased town clothes, with the white hankies of gentlefolk folded to peak above breast pockets in a perfect suggestion of gentility and standing. The citizenry mingled—Howdy, Hello, Good gracious is that you? The hardware store was busy all day, and the bench seats outside became heavy with squatting men who spit brown splotches toward the gutter. Boys and girls hefted baskets of produce, ate penny candy, and screamed, begged nickels so they could catch the cowboy matinee at the Avenue Theater. Automobiles and trucks parked east of the square, wagons and mules rested north in the field below the stockyard pens. Toward evening the drinking and gambling men would gather to cheer or curse or wave weapons when local horses were raced on the flat, beaten track that circled the pens.

It was a man named Blue who fell on a night that followed such a day, a man and a falling I knew only from whispers, and the whispering had it that Blue tended horses here and there and was the only jockey around who could get the very best from a spectacular dun gelding named Greenvoe.

Mrs. E. H. Chambliss, in conversation outside Otto and Belle’s Barbecue, probably in June of 1976: “That horse had a grandeur like no man and few beasts. He’d fly if he wanted to go slow.”

Mr. Todd Pilkington, smoking in the men’s room just before the funeral of a classmate he’d served beside at Anzio, spring 1984: “I’ve heard that horse mentioned—but wasn’t that from you? Askin’ me at some other funeral?”

Mr. Edward H. Chambliss, during a phone call in winter of 1994: “That nigra Blue was the best rider and hand hereabouts in them days, and him’n your granddaddy trained that horse up together real well. Real well.”

My father, as the whistling breaths from his oxygen tubes kept the cat scared, and after the dog had smelled the near future on his master and run into the woods, never to return, the week of his death, 1993: “Son, I heard the water pump squeakin’ in the yard late that night. That old pump, gushin’ water for quite a spell, so late, and voices.”

Black families had been recruited in Oxford, Mississippi, and brought to town by Dr. Brumleigh in 1910. The doctor owned vast fruit orchards just east of town, several hundred acres, and brought fourteen complete families north to work them for him. A bare clutch of rudimentary houses were built for the families on a gullied slope out of view from the square in the still largely forsaken northeastern reaches of town. The orchard failed within a decade. The blacks remained in homes that were soon too small, unsnug, and uneven against the sky. New rooms were made of what was easily found—wood scraps from backyards and trash piles, sheets of crumpled metal blown free by storms, chicken wire, river stones, with foundation stumps of almost the right size tipping the floors slightly this way and that. There were no romantic entryways or cozy embellishments. Windows cracked at angles as the houses relaxed further into the dirt.

Mr. Micah Kerr, beside Howl Creek, holding a cane pole while watching his bobber not bob, around 1969: “Them days, boy, furniture’d really start a-fallin’ of a Saturday night over on Nigger Hill, there. Somebody’d a-get to fussin’ with somebody else ’til furniture started flyin’ and a-fallin’, and that fussin’d go on and on ’til the makin’ up started, which was usually louder.”

My oldest living relative, who had, with great single-mindedness, remarried in less than a year, at her spacious new home, late 1993: “Don’t write that. Why write that? There wasn’t any murder like that. It never happened. Never happened. And please listen good to me for once—they’re not all dead yet.”

The horse was, in most versions of the story, a bangtail grown powerful from running the sand bottoms of the Jacks Fork. Sometimes the horse had been stolen out of Sallisaw by one of the Grieve brothers, or a sly stranger who gave a false name on sale day and promptly left town. The horse was always dun, a bitter gelding, with a crisp stride and endless stamina. A horse worth fighting over.

Mr. Willie Johnstone, bourbon in hand, at a fish fry of redear perch on the Eleven Point, 1995: “I guess your granddaddy and ol’ Blue was with the horse most days in them years. The lunch whistle’d blow at the mill’n lots of times you’d pretty quick see William Sidney walkin’ the path yonder above Eccleston’s, the path that’s gone now but used to be the nigh cut through those woods that were there and came out into a backyard on the Hill. Fetchin’ ol’ Blue, I guess, to work that horse for the lunch hour in a field somewhere over there. I can still see him in my head, his shape goin’ up that path—your granddaddy walked about like you do, kid, sort of hunched, like he was halfway duckin’ from somethin’ all the time.”

Mrs. E. H. Chambliss, with her eyes closed and her hands clasped, on a porch swing in July 1995: “Oh, them two loved that horse. Which is sad, ’cause I think the horse is what killed him, really. The heartbreak, don’t you know?”

Mr. Tom Finney, after my father’s funeral, while carving a ham: “Shit, boy, his name wasn’t Greenvoe—wherever’d you get that from? And he wasn’t much of a horse, neither, if I’m rememberin’ the horse you mean. Used to stop on the far half of the track and drop horse apples in the midst of a goddamn race—that sound like a great champ to you?”

Mr. Ronnie Thigpen, at his daughter’s home near Egypt Grove, with the television blaring world news and a rack of medicine bottles on the table at his side, 1994: “There had been a drunk hobo run over by a train’n broken apart a month or so earlier, so when I seen all this blood’n splintered wood’n stuff, I thought, Uh-oh, another drunk hobo forgot to jump. Then I seen it was a nigger, a nigger from town, there, that had forgot to jump. So I told the man at the train depot there was a sort of familiar-lookin’ nigger dead in the weeds over by the tracks, and I guess he flagged a deputy.”

My oldest living relative, while picking cherries from her yard trees, 1996: “That’s ’cause you got the name wrong. His name wasn’t Blue—it was Ballou. Folks misheard his last name and thought it was his first name, so that’s what he got called. His wife used to be around, did housework and the like, and her name was Ballou. Look for him under Ballou.”

Summer had its fangs out sharp and long that year, sucking the joy from every sunny hour. The heat led to erupting meannesses between intimates, bursts of spite that bubbled the truth up top to be hurled from one sweated sopping side of the bed to the other, never to be truly forgotten or gotten over. Howl Creek, a rumpled, dissolute puddling of water, became the nearest splashing place, and many folks of both sexes took small relief in the darkness there. A fainting quiet fell over the darkened town, and headaches ebbed in the silence, until an approaching train would release a rallying moan into the night. The railroad tracks ran beside the creek and the moan stirred sleep all across town.

Sheriff Solomon Combs, in a ledger found under a basement staircase at the courthouse, dated August 4, 1938: “Ballou. Colored. First name not sure. Drunk and hit by a train hauling timber. Deceased. Accident.”

Mrs. E. H. Chambliss, waiting for hot rolls at the Ramada Inn buffet, on Easter Sunday, 1996: “The horse. I’m sure anything that might’ve happened, or maybe didn’t, was about that horse.”

Mr. Tom Finney, in the parking lot outside Kenny’s Walleye Restaurant, summer 1996: “That worthless pony is probably still lollygaggin’ on the far turn to spread horse apples, Danny. Hurry’n you can maybe still catch a glimpse of ’im yet, dawdling along the rail with his ass to the finish line and his tail in the air.”

Someone official must’ve carried the news to the Hill. Knocking on doors to raised houses made of things not meant to be nailed together, but that stood for years, invalid structures patched further with odds and ends as passing seasons brought rot to the wood and old nails fell away. In the shade and fine dust beneath the houses, dogs have belly-dragged in and out until belly-shaped draws have been wiggled into the dirt. Kids follow dogs, and on the Sundays of most seasons muffled playing voices rise from the shaded crawl spaces and catch the wind to fly. Knock, knock—You Blue’s wife? These li’l girls his kids? Well, he won’t be home no more. Jumped in front of a timber train. Must’ve been drunk. You can bury the boy over at Sadie’s.

Mr. Edward H. Chambliss, with his chin in the air and his ancient fists balled, on his front porch, early 1997: “William Sidney always was my best friend, goddamn you, Danny. And best friend don’t mean nothin’ if you won’t stand for each other when the bad time comes. You might oughta keep clear of me. You might oughta do that. And don’t call my wife, neither.”

My oldest living relative, on the phone, early 1997: “These were not men lamed by any sorts of doubts about anything they did. Or might do yet—hear me?”

An uncle who’d had two ships blown wide and sunk beneath him in the Pacific, and came home with what they called “shell shock”—a cracked and occasionally cascading state of mind that was accompanied by a delicate lacing of public shame—on the phone from Australia, where he’d emigrated in 1955: “I knew Blue from when I ran errands for the men out at Cozy Grove, the bar there. I never saw him with a horse. He wasn’t much higher’n a belt buckle, but he was stronger’n Limburger cheese. He’d carry feed sacks from town for a nickel. I never heard of Dad doin’ much of anything with horses, neither, but go broke bettin’ on ’em. You knew Dad was born well-to-do, didn’t you? Had all that land once out by JJ Highway. Lost everything before I was born on moonshine and ladies in red and mighty slow horses, and never even said sorry, either.”

So it’s written down for an accident by the law, and the Ballou kids from that home-sawn house on the Hill come along fatherless into the war years, years that were hard on everybody, those wrinkling years of rubber rations, gas rations, meat rations, and unlimited worry, worry, every day the worry and the wrinkling and another supper leached from the same ham bone and more navy beans. See them waiting for dark before touring the square during the holiday season, heavy wet misting clouds between the tall lamps and their feet, pausing before the keenly garish shop windows, dampening scarves molding to their heads, wearing the uncertain slanting gaze of children who’ve been scalded other times for acting too familiar. A damp virtuosity of misshapen reflections on the street, the windows, the eyeglasses of the few walkers passing by, and two girls noting to each other the presents they most favored from shops they’d never go inside.

My father, drinking the whiskey he loved in the shadowed garage, with meddlers out of sight, fall 1992: “We each of us get dealt a lot of cards by our old ones, son, but you don’t want to play them all.”

The Hill as it was is vanished now, finished off by high heels and humiliated scolds, flattened to nothing and the scraps carted away in 1956. The sound of her high heels clicking on sidewalk cement brought water to the mouths of men within ear of her sashay, moist and listening as she came along so avid and fluid, with fluctuating mounds, the clicks entering their heads with the rhythm of dreams. A blooming of taffeta and a sweet woozy smell. Her voice was rich and round and rolled on and on, seducing with each spin, and the voice gave her a fresh name—Dyna Flo. A smitten car dealer used her in local radio spots, and she said the tagline so it held within it the promise of everything craved: “It’s the Dyna Flo that makes it magic, folks. Come on out to Yount’s Buick’n see for yourselves.” Mr. Yount fell her way, his wallet held open and his mind helplessly made up. He swung by on Saturday nights with bottles of hooch and sporting friends, and the friends soon fell her way, too, and dripped dollar bills to her floor. Dyna Flo Ballou, her first name lost just as her father’s had been, walked tall and flush and brought stray bits of finery to the Hill: curtains of bright yellow, brittle champagne glasses, expensive dresses from St. Louis in the wrong color for my skin, honey, that were soon worn by young girls mopping the floors of town.

My oldest living relative, during a warm winter, while her husband cleaned fish near Mammoth Spring: “She was drop-dead gorgeous. That gal got prettier every time I saw her, and she stopped traffic the first time I saw her. And, lordy, that voice—that Dyna Flo voice! No, no, she wasn’t the kind of beauty you could ever miss—had eyes ’bout as blue as yours, Danny. We used to run into her sometimes when you were tiny. She always wanted to touch you. Touch your nose, tickle your cheek. Just touch you.”

A schedule was arranged between the men with money, and Dyna Flo laughed low and golden from her porch steps until heard by wives who couldn’t stand the sound nor the fact of her. The men were shamed but would not give her up, and marriages split in spots that never healed. Humiliated, the wives gathered uncles, brothers, friends from church with white robes and sticks, and during a rainy spell went to Dyna Flo’s house, kicked the door aside, and threw everything she had into the yard-mud. Get out of town, tonight, or the same train’ll hit you that hit your daddy. A week later every household on the Hill received a letter from the city, telling them to vacate the premises while water lines and sewers were put in and the streets were paved. We’ll let you know when you can come back.

Mr. Tom Finney: “Most likely St. Louis. That’s what I heard. Folks was rough on colored people then, and black was the main one of them colors.”

Mr. Ronnie Thigpen, Egypt Grove, 1994: “I went back by once the sheriff come along for a look. There was a bunch of two-by-fours that was splintered a little bit and had bloody places on ’em. Five or six, I guess. I seen the sheriff sort of kick those two-by-fours away from the tracks, down into the creek there. That’s when he said, ‘Looks to me like ol’ Blue jumped in front of a timber train. Amen.’”

Mrs. E. H. Chambliss, accosted and held by the wrist, outside the Front Street Church of Christ in 1998, a month after her husband’s death: “They was all brought together by love, Danny. The love of that horse. Your granddaddy doted on that thing, him’n Blue, then somethin’ soured and Blue got drunk’n died. That horse was magnificent, hear? Beautiful to see, he was. Would’ve won any race he could’ve been got to—just that special. He was just so special.”

My oldest living relative, sitting in a shaded parlor, upon reading my notes and turning over the last page, folded her old hands and closed her eyes: “There never was a horse. The rest is true.”