Of Love and Dust (5 page)

It was hot, it was burning up. You could see little monkeys dancing out there in front of you.

I got myself a cold drink of water and filled up that gallon jug and took it out to the tractor. By the time I had cranked up Red Hannah, I saw John and Freddie coming down the quarter. They were walking close together and just giggling. I didn’t see how any two people, punks or no punks, could find anything to giggle about in all this heat; but there they were in their khakis and big straw hats and brogans, just giggling. You would have thought they were two little perfumed gals going to the dance.

Marcus slid off the gallery and came out of the yard. I had climbed up on the tractor and John and Freddie had got in that end-trailer, and we watched Marcus coming toward us. He wore the same short-sleeve green shirt and brown pants; the same low-top shoes, and not a thing on his head.

“Where’s that hat?” he asked me.

“You going to need more than a hat, boy,” I said.

“Where’s the hat?” he asked again.

“Under that load of corn at the front,” I said.

“You got another one?”

“I got an old felt hat hanging on the chair in there, you want that?”

“No,” he said.

“I got this red handkerchief in my pocket.”

“I don’t want no fucking red handkerchief,” he said.

“Hop in,” I said. “We’re wasting time.”

He got into the front trailer and we started for the field. I drove slowly through the quarter—I didn’t want dust flying all over the place; but after I crossed the railroad tracks, I threw Red Hannah into high gear and let her take us to the back.

Lord, it was hot out there; Lord, it was hot. But I had something going for me. I had the big umbrella and I had something to dream about and forget the heat. I knew Red Hannah would stay in the road for me even if I slept a whole minute, so every now and then, to forget the sun and the dust, I thought back to the good times with Billie Jean. I thought about the tub, and I thought about us dancing, then I thought about us hurrying back to that bed. Sometimes we didn’t make it back to the house; sometimes it happened right there in the car, sometimes in the open field. Once when it was over, we just kept on laying out there. Must have been a billion stars in the sky, and that big moon, like a tub of clean water, hung over our heads like it was there just for me and her. We laid there and laid there, and the next thing we knew it was morning and the people were coming in the field. Everybody bust out laughing when they saw us, and all we could do was laugh with them.

Then it was New Orleans, then it was over.

Freddie opened the first gate; John opened the second gate; Freddie opened the third one. Marcus didn’t get down once until we reached the patch of corn.

“Here,” I said, giving him my straw hat. “You better put that on.”

He took the hat; no thanks, no nothing; he just took it. I got out my red handkerchief and tied it round my head. After all, I had the big umbrella, too.

So we started on down, Marcus in the middle and John and Freddie on the sides. They still weren’t working too fast—fast enough to keep a step or two ahead of him—but still not fast as they could if they wanted to. But that was part of the plan. They were going to work him down gradually on the first load, and the last load, when Bonbon was there, they were going to really pour it on. I moved the tractor down the field slowly as I could—for his sake—but at the same time I had to go fast enough to get the work done. Three men were supposed to pull two loads of corn in the morning and two loads in the evening, and if they didn’t get it done, Bonbon knew it was the driver who was stalling. So I had to keep up a pretty good speed, and at the same time not too fast so he would never fall too far back.

Somewhere between four and quarter after, we had the first trailer done. When I took it to the headland to unhook it and hook up the empty one, I looked across the patch of corn and saw Bonbon on the stallion.

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By the time I had set the tractor down the field, Bonbon was there. His khaki shirt was wringing wet with sweat. His white straw hat was turned up at the sides like a cowboy hat; he even wore cowboy boots. His Winchester hung on the left side of the saddle; a crocker sack was tied on the right side of the saddle. A piece of grass rope was tied on the end of the sack, and I knew what to expect later.

Nobody said anything. Usually he spoke when he came out in the field like this, but this time he didn’t. I set the tractor down the row; John and Freddie got on both sides of the trailer, Marcus got right behind it on the center row, and Bonbon got right behind Marcus on the stallion. The horse was so close to Marcus, I’m sure Marcus could feel the horse’s hot breath on the back of his neck. So now it had started. Now they were going to give him a taste of what it meant to kill and then let yourself be bonded out of jail. They were going to let him know (not that they cared a hoot for the other boy) that he wasn’t tough as he thought he was.

So now it had started. I set the tractor at the speed she’s supposed to run when she has three men pulling corn behind her. John and Freddie started pitching corn like they had come into this world to do just that. And poor Marcus, with
that black stallion only a step behind him, tried to keep up with them. He did for a while. He did for a row, a row and a half, then two. But soon as we started down the third set, I could see that that whiskey and that pussy from last night had caught up with him. And seeing that he was falling back, the two punks really poured it on.

“Move up,” Freddie called.

Before I had gone fifty feet down the row, Marcus had dropped back fifteen; and before I had gone fifty more, he had dropped back that much farther. Now he was throwing that corn overhand, and with that trailer just a little over half full, I knew that was the end of him.

“Move up,” Freddie called.

And I set Red Hannah at a little faster speed. Well, I had done all I could do for him. I had tried to bring him back here last night, I had fed him, I had given him a straw hat and even offered him khakis to wear. I had done everything a good Christian (one who had once believed) could do.

I glanced back now, and there were John and Freddie only about five feet behind the trailer. And back about thirty or thirty-five feet was Marcus. That short-sleeve shirt was wringing wet; that straw hat looked like it was wringing wet, too, though I’m not too sure I’ve ever seen a wringing wet straw hat from sweat alone. And there was Bonbon leaning on the pommel of the saddle, looking down at Marcus. And there was that black stallion about six inches behind Marcus—and poor Marcus feeling the horse’s hot breath on the back of his neck.

“Move up,” Freddie called.

I looked toward the front again. Old Hannah kept up her
putt-putt-putting
on down the row like nothing was happening. And those hot, burning, yellow stalks of corn stood before us and all around us like nothing was happening.
And that old sun to my right—white, small, and still strong—shone down on us like nothing was happening. Man, man, man, I thought; only you worry about what’s happening to you, because nothing or anybody else cares. And you, Billie, you care? Do you care at all, my little chicken? And how about the one he laid with last night, and how about the ones he bought drinks for on Saturday before he killed that boy? Do they care? And how about You, do You care? I don’t think so—because if You did, it looks to me like You would send us a little breeze, wouldn’t You? Now, mind you, I’m not asking You that for myself. Not at all, not at all. I figure a man with an eight-grade education, with a sitting-down job, shouldn’t go round complaining about anything. But it’s for the others I want it. Especially for the one ’way back there.

I stopped when I got to the end and looked back, and he already had the sack hanging on his shoulder. It had happened like this. I wasn’t there, now, I was here on the tractor; but I had seen it happen before and I knew what had taken place.

“All right,” Bonbon had said. “Your arm getting tired. Here, try this.”

He had untied the sack and thrown it down on the ground before Marcus. Marcus had picked it up and looked at it, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

“Look it over good,” Bonbon had probably said. “It be part of you ’fore that sun go down there.”

Marcus had probably stood there fumbling with it a minute, while all the time Bonbon had leaned a little on the pommel of the saddle, looking down at him. The horse had stood there sweating a little and hoping that Marcus would hurry up and find out what the sack was about so he could start moving again. He didn’t mind carrying Bonbon (he
was born to carry man), but he would rather move with Bonbon or two like Bonbon than stand with one Bonbon in that hot sun.

Marcus finally understood what the sack was about and slipped it over his shoulder. Now he started pulling corn and putting it in the sack. He was so weak now he had to jerk on an ear of corn sometimes three times before he could break it off. A dozen ears of corn in the sack, and already the sack felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. Already the rope had started to eat through that green shirt at his shoulder. Five more ears of corn, and the sack felt twice as heavy. Five more, and poor Marcus could hardly move. And Bonbon never saying a word, just leaning a little on the pommel of the saddle like he had all the time in the world.

Marcus staggered when he tried to swing the sack on his back, so he dropped it on the ground and dragged it toward the tractor. I had parked the tractor on the headland, John and Freddie had moved up against the trailer in the shade, and the three of us watched Marcus dragging the sack toward the end. When he came up to the tractor he rested about ten seconds, then he swung the sack up on the trailer. He climbed up and dumped it, then he jumped back down and went back down the row. Bonbon hadn’t moved—I ought to say the horse hadn’t moved—Bonbon had straightened up in the saddle and he was watching a hawk flying in the sky just to his right. There was a little pecan tree fifty or sixty yards farther down the headland, and the hawk flew there and rested on one of the top limbs. Bonbon let him rest a minute, like he wanted to give him a fair shake; then I saw him pulling the Winchester slowly out of the sling and raising it to his shoulder. The first shot chipped off piece of the limb, just close enough to make the hawk fly away. The hawk broke from the tree and flew across the field. I saw Bonbon
moving the rifle slowly and I saw the sun on the barrel (blue-like) and my eyes went to the hawk. I heard the
pi-yow-yow
of the Winchester, and I saw two or three feathers busting away from the hawk, and I saw the hawk coming down over the field like a wet shirt that somebody had thrown up in the air.

“Chicken there, Freddie,” Bonbon called to the headland.

“Yassuh,” Freddie said, already running over to where the hawk had come down.

Bonbon put the rifle back and touched the horse lightly to make him move. By the time Freddie got back with the hawk, Marcus and Bonbon had got to the end and Marcus had climbed up on the trailer to dump his sack.

“Where I get him?” Bonbon asked Freddie.

“Poor little thing ain’t got no more heart,” Freddie said.

All of us looked at Freddie holding the hawk up in the air. The hawk was mostly gray and brown, but there were some red and black feathers across its wings and its back. When I said all of us were looking at the hawk, I should have said all of us were looking at the hawk except Marcus. Marcus was looking at Bonbon. He had probably glanced at the hawk once, but he started looking at Bonbon after. But I didn’t know it then. It wasn’t until later I knew he had been looking at Bonbon a long time.

“Had the pistol I could get him with that,” Bonbon said.

“Pistol go that far, Mr. Sidney?” Freddie asked. He was still holding the hawk up so everybody could see it.

“Pistol can go, you just got to know how to shoot it,” Bonbon said.

“If anybody can, you can, Mr. Sidney,” Freddie said.

“I do all right,” Bonbon said.

Then I saw him turning and looking at Marcus. He didn’t look straight at him, he looked at him from the side. And
from the way Marcus stood there looking back at Bonbon, I could tell he had been looking at him a long time. So it was Bonbon who let me know Marcus had been looking at him and not at the hawk. And it was the look in Marcus’s face that let me know Bonbon hadn’t given the hawk a break when he didn’t shoot him on the limb; he had shot twice because he wanted to show Marcus how good he was.

Bonbon turned from Marcus and looked across the field at the sun. I could hear the
sagg-sagg
of the saddle when he shifted his weight from one side to the other.

“Move her, Geam,” he said.

Freddie tied his hawk on the back of the trailer with a piece of twine, and Marcus tied his sack on the back of the trailer by the rope. We started back down the field, and Marcus kept up with them about halfway down. Then he fell back and had to get the sack again. Bonbon and the horse were right behind him all the way.

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