Place Called Estherville (22 page)

She was smiling temptingly at him. “I bet you would if you wanted to enough.”

“No, ma’m!” he told her emphatically, as though he knew there was unquestioned danger of his being lured to his ruin. “I couldn’t ever do something like that. I just couldn’t, Miss Mozelle. No, ma’m!”

“Why won’t you get me something pretty, Ganus?” she begged, drawling ingratiatingly.

“Miss Mozelle, you know good and well I couldn’t go and do something like that.”

“Why not?”

Because I’m a colored boy, and you’re a white missy, that’s why.”

“You don’t have to be scared.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because I won’t tell.”

“That wouldn’t help none.”

“Nobody’ll ever know.”

“No, ma’m! I know what I’m doing, Miss Mozelle.”

“I swear-to-God-as-His-little-lamb and promise never to tell a single living soul and hope to die if I do. Now, don’t you believe me?”

“Miss Mozelle,” he pleaded, acutely distressed, “please quit talking like that. Mr. Burgess would grab something and flail the living daylights out of me if he heard you saying things like that while I was anywhere around. No, ma’m! I know what’s good for me—and that’s bad!”

He reached down and lifted the heavy wooden box.

“I’m not scared of him, Ganus,” she said.

“I can’t help that. You ought to be. I know I am.”

“You don’t have to be scared of him, Ganus. He won’t never know.”

“You ought to be scared, Miss Mozelle, just like I am. I sure wish the Good Man would make you scared, and keep you that way, too.”

“Will you come back tomorrow and bring me something pretty, Ganus?”

“Not so you’ll notice it, Miss Mozelle,” he told her harshly. “That’s a fact.”

“You’d better get me something pretty, Ganus Bazemore,” she told him, her whiny voice rising to a threatening note. “You’d better listen to me, now.”

“Why?” he asked, catching his breath.

“You’ll wish you had.”

“What makes you say that, Miss Mozelle?” he asked, trembling and fearful.

“Because I’ll get even with you if you don’t, that’s why.”

Ganus had already shouldered the rabbit box and he started walking away so he would not hear anything more she said. He wanted to get as far away from her as he could, and to stay away after that. He looked back only once, and when he saw Mozelle in the bare sandy yard watching him, he hurried into the thicket and out of her sight.

After finding a rabbit run in the growth of blackjacks, he set the trigger carefully so that it would be sure to drop the trap door when a cottontail went inside, baited it with a fresh cabbage leaf, and then started walking along the crest of Pawpaw Ridge to look at his other boxes. He had gone about a hundred yards when he saw Mozelle running across the cotton field toward the oak grove ahead and he wondered if she were running away from home again. He was glad he had got away from her as safely as he had, and he told himself that the next time he came to the ridge to look at the traps, he was going to keep as far away from Burgess Tarver’s house as he possibly could. He even thought it would be wise to move the traps nearest his house to some place farther away.

Mozelle soon disappeared from sight in the grove. While he was going down the ridge, he could hear the resounding echoes of axes in the grove, but soon after that the echoes suddenly vanished. He stopped and listened, but the chopping did not start again, and he trotted down the ridge toward the first trap on the edge of the cypress lowland to see if he had caught a cottontail in it during the night.

After running all the way to the oak grove where Burgess and Reeves Houck were cutting cordwood, Mozelle was too breathless to say anything at first. She leaned against a tree while Burgess wondered what had happened to make her look so wild-eyed and excited. Every few moment she glanced behind her in the direction of the cotton field.

“What’s the matter with you, Mozelle?” Burgess asked her several times before she answered.

Panting, she finally told him, “I’m scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Niggers.”

“What niggers?”

She turned around and pointed down the wagon road in the direction from which she had come.

“The big strong nigger who crept up on me in the house when I wasn’t looking and grabbed me.”

“Done what?” he said, looking at Reeves.

“He did, too! A nigger grabbed me!”

Burgess studied her closely for several moments. “Is this another big lie you’ve made up?”

“It’s not a lie. It’s the truth. I swear-to-God-as-His-little-lamb. A big nigger grabbed me and made me do it.”

Burgess and Reeves looked at each other, both wondering if this was one time when she was telling the truth.

“What’d you say somebody done to you?” Reeves asked her. He was the smaller of the two men and had wiry brown hair. He was unmarried and lived alone on the west side of Pawpaw Ridge. “Who done what, Mozelle?”

She turned to Reeves with an eager smile as if she had been waiting for such an opportunity. “Just like this, Reeves,” she told him, lifting her dress and twisting it around her neck. “He done it just like this and I couldn’t make him quit. He was too strong. He was the strongest man I ever heard tell about. He just kept on and on all the time and wouldn’t quit. There wasn’t nothing I could do about it, was there? Everybody knows how weak and puny I am. I can’t even wring off a little old pullet’s neck. Everybody knows that. Men can always make me do everything they want. I just never could make them quit. I’ve always been that way ever since I can remember. Even little boys can make me, if they try hard enough.”

Reeves, after the first startling sight of her, had become embarrassed by the bold display of her naked body. He lowered his head and looked down at the ground until she spoke again.

“Pull your clothes down and cover yourself up,” Burgess told her roughly, trying to snatch at her dress. Eluding him with an agile excited leap, she ran to the other side of Reeves, still holding the green flannelette garment around her neck. Her thin gaunt body looked childish and her small undeveloped breasts clung motionlessly to her chest. “All that sounds to me mighty like another of your big lies,” Burgess accused her suspiciously. “I don’t believe no nigger came nowhere near you.”

“He did, though,” she spoke up quickly, watching Reeves Houck. “I’ll show you just exactly how he done it, if you don’t believe me. He done it just like this. He was too big and strong for me to try to make him quit. He was the strongest thing. He just kept on and on for the longest time. It was the strangest thing. He acted like he never wanted to quit. I never had nobody want to keep on so long before. I swear to God and hope to die, if that ain’t the truth. You believe me, don’t you, Reeves? Don’t you, now?”

“What nigger done it?” Reeves asked her, impressed by her eagerness to make him believe her. “What’s his name?”

“He was a strange nigger, Reeves,” she answered unhesitatingly, looking straight into his eyes as though she were incapable of telling him a falsehood. “He was black all over, but sort of light-colored, too—like a real bright gingerbread nigger—with great big hands and long feet. I never saw him before in my life. I don’t know where he came from. Maybe from somewhere off in another country somewhere. He just crept up behind me when I wasn’t looking and grabbed me and made me keep quiet, and then he started in and done it like this. He was so big and strong I couldn’t make him quit for the longest time. You believe me, Reeves, don’t you, now?”

“Which way did he go?” Burgess asked her, still not convinced she was telling the truth.

“Down that way, on the other side of the ridge toward the cypress swamp,” she told him, pointing toward the cotton field. “I saw him go down that way.”

“Where’s he at now?”

“He’s hiding out down there somewhere on the other side of the newground, where you and Reeves cut down the trees the last time. He’s hiding out down there this very minute. I saw him go in there with my own eyes. I swear-to-God-as-His-little-lamb and hope to die!”

“Hell, I don’t know if she’s telling the truth this time or not,” Burgess said doubtfully. “It don’t look to me like no nigger would dare go near my house, and she’s told so many whopping big lies, I don’t know one from another no more. But if she’s telling anywhere near the truth this time, we’ll get the black bastard.” He went to Mozelle, snatched her clothes down, and pushed her away. “Go on home now and lock up all the doors till I get there. Keep your face away from the windows, too. If one black went after you, more’ll get the notion.”

Looking back at them over her shoulder, and smiling at Reeves, she ran down the wagon road toward home as they picked up their axes and started toward the newground. Neither of them said anything until they got to the edge of the field. Mozelle was out of sight by that time.

“Reckon she’s lying about it, Burgess?” Reeves asked him earnestly. “Looks like you ought to be able to tell. You ought to know by the way she talks and acts by now. I don’t want to get mixed up in no race trouble, unless it’s something that ought to be done. The rest of the time I’m willing to live and let live. I don’t have no grudges against the blacks like you do. I figure they ought to be left alone to mind their own business, as long as things go all right.”

“I’ll be God damned if I know if she’s lying this time or telling the truth,” Burgess admitted, shaking his head to himself. “She’s such a big liar I never know. She makes up the damnedest tales sometimes. Nobody could believe half what she says, half the time. But if there’s a nigger hiding out in that thicket, by God, I’ll get him. No black son-of-a-bitching nigger’s going to jump my wife and not pay for it, even if he didn’t do nowhere near what she claims he done to her. Even if all he done was just pass by and look at her hard, that’s all I need to know.”

Ganus was kneeling on the ground at one of his rabbit boxes when he heard footsteps on the dry brush behind him. He looked around and saw Burgess and Reeves only a few steps away. He saw at once that something was wrong. He jerked off his cap and smiled, but the expression on the faces of both of them remained stern and unrelenting.

“Howdy, Mr. Burgess and Mr. Reeves,” he said hurriedly. “How’re you all white folks today?” He tried to talk to them in a manner that they would be less likely to find fault with. “You all looking for something?”

“What you doing, nigger?” Burgess said in a gruff tone.

“Just looking at my rabbit boxes, that’s all, Mr. Burgess.”

“Who you think gave you leave to set out rabbit traps all over this part of the country?”

“Nobody did, Mr. Burgess, but I thought it’d be all right to catch rabbits most anywhere. Mr. Glover Grimball wouldn’t want the cottontails eating up all the crops, would he, Mr. Reeves?”

“That’s his business, not yours, nigger,” Burgess said.

“Yes, sir,” he said meekly, frightened by the increasingly hostile attitude of the two men. He wondered if they had seen him standing at the edge of the yard talking to Mozelle. Then, for the first time, he realized that each of the men had an ax gripped by the handle. “Yes, sir, Mr. Burgess,” he said through trembling lips, “if you say so, it sure is right. I don’t have no business at all trapping rabbits around here. I’ll just go on away now and never do it again, please, sir.”

He scrambled to his feet and started to move away from them.

“Come back here, nigger!” Burgess shouted.

Ganus took a few reluctant steps in the direction of the two men, asking, “What do you white folks want with me, please, sir, Mr. Burgess?”

“What do you reckon?” Reeves Houck said to him.

“I sure don’t know, Mr. Reeves. I sure enough don’t.”

Burgess came toward him. “You went in my house a little while ago and jumped my wife, didn’t you, you yellow-skin bastard!”

“What you say, Mr. Burgess?”

He began to shake and tremble as the full meaning of what he was being accused of came to him.

“You heard me, nigger.”

“Yes, sir, I heard you, but I sure enough don’t know what you’re talking about at all, please, sir, Mr. Burgess.”

“Like so much hell you don’t know! I know damn well you done it now. You act like it. It’s sticking out all over you. I can tell when a nigger’s lying. I ain’t no fool.”

“Done—what—what did you say, Mr. Burgess?”

“You heard me the first time, you goddam coon. You ain’t deaf. You know damn well what you done. You went in my house and jumped my wife. I got the proof. She said you done it. That’s all I need to know.”

“Who—who—who said I did that, please, sir, Mr. Burgess?”

“My wife said it, that’s who, and she’s the one who’d know. You wouldn’t call her a liar, would you? She came running over the field a while ago to where me and Reeves was chopping cordwood and told all about how you done it. It’s a damn lucky thing I caught you before you sneaked away. You’d been clean out of the country by dark, if me and Reeves hadn’t caught you in here.”

“Mr. Burgess, please, sir, I wouldn’t want to dispute any white folks’ word, but that’s sure not the truth about me. Maybe somebody else did what you said, but I sure didn’t. I know better than get myself in that kind of trouble. I’ve got a lot better sense than that. When I went past your house about an hour ago, I just barely stepped on the far corner of your front yard, and I sure didn’t go nowhere near enough to Miss Mozelle to bother her. I’ve got plenty better sense than do something like you said. I’m always out to stay away from that kind of trouble. Somebody made a bad mistake about that, Mr. Burgess.”

“You calling my wife a liar, nigger?”

“No, sir, I wouldn’t do that, but I just naturally didn’t do anything like what you said. I just didn’t. The Good Man would tell you that’s the real truth. You believe me, don’t you, Mr. Burgess? You know I’m telling the Good Man’s own truth, don’t you, Mr. Reeves? Please say you know it’s all the real truth. Won’t you say it, Mr. Burgess?”

“Hell, no. I ain’t never seen a nigger yet who wouldn’t try to lie out of something when he’s caught at it.”

“But I just naturally didn’t nowhere do what you said, Mr. Burgess,” he pleaded. “Miss Mozelle must be all mixed up about something. Please, sir, you go ask her again, and beg her to please tell the real truth about me this time. She ought to do that. If she said what was the truth, that’d prove it, wouldn’t it, Mr. Reeves?”