Stories of Erskine Caldwell (91 page)

Lonnie nodded, listening for sounds from the big house. He continued to nod at Clem while Clem was waiting to be assured.

“If you’re going to stand up for me,” Clem said, “I can just go over there in the woods and wait till they get it off their minds. You won’t be telling them where I’m at, and you could say I struck out for the swamp. They wouldn’t ever find me without bloodhounds.”

“That’s right,” Lonnie said, listening for sounds of Arch’s coming out of the house. He did not wish to be found back there behind the barn where Arch could accuse him of talking to Clem.

The moment Lonnie replied, Clem turned and ran off into the night. Lonnie went after him a few steps, as if he had suddenly changed his mind about helping him, but Clem was lost in the darkness by then.

Lonnie waited for a few minutes, listening to Clem crashing through the underbrush in the patch of woods a quarter of a mile away. When he could hear Clem no longer, he went around the barn to meet Arch.

Arch came out of the house carrying his double-barreled shotgun and the lantern he had picked up in the house. His pockets were bulging with shells.

“Where is that damn nigger, Lonnie?” Arch asked him. “Where’d he go to?”

Lonnie opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“You know which way he went, don’t you?”

Lonnie again tried to say something, but there were no sounds. He jumped when he found himself nodding his head to Arch.

“Mr. Arch, I —”

“That’s all right, then,” Arch said. “That’s all I need to know now, Dudley Smith and Tom Hawkins and Frank and Dave Howard and the rest will be here in a minute, and you can stay right here so you can show us where he’s hiding out.”

Frantically Lonnie tried to say something. Then he reached for Arch’s sleeve to stop him, but Arch had gone.

Arch ran around the house to the front yard. Soon a car came racing down the road, its headlights lighting up the whole place, hog pen and all. Lonnie knew it was probably Dudley Smith, because his was the first house in that direction, only half a mile away. While he was turning into the driveway, several other automobiles came into sight, both up the road and down it.

Lonnie trembled. He was afraid Arch was going to tell him to point out where Clem had gone to hide. Then he knew Arch would tell him. He had promised Clem he would not do that. But try as he might, he could not make himself believe that Arch Gunnard would do anything more than whip Clem.

Clem had not done anything that called for lynching. He had not raped a white woman, he had not shot at a white man; he had only talked back to Arch, with his hat on. But Arch was mad enough to do anything; he was mad enough at Clem not to stop at anything short of lynching.

The whole crowd of men was swarming around him before he realized it. And there was Arch clutching his arm and shouting into his face.

“Mr. Arch, I—”

Lonnie recognized every man in the feeble dawn. They were excited, and they looked like men on the last lap of an all-night fox-hunting party. Their shotguns and pistols were held at their waist, ready for the kill.

“What’s the matter with you, Lonnie?” Arch said, shouting into his ear. “Wake up and say where Clem Henry went to hide out. We’re ready to go get him.”

Lonnie remembered looking up and seeing Frank Howard dropping yellow twelve-gauge shells into the breech of his gun. Frank bent forward so he could hear Lonnie tell Arch where Clem was hiding.

“You ain’t going to kill Clem this time, are you, Mr. Arch?” Lonnie asked.

“Kill him?” Dudley Smith repeated. “What do you reckon I’ve been waiting all this time for if it wasn’t for a chance to get Clem. That nigger has had it coming to him ever since he came to this county. He’s a bad nigger, and it’s coming to him.”

“It wasn’t exactly Clem’s fault,” Lonnie said. “If Pa hadn’t come up here and fell in the hog pen, Clem wouldn’t have had a thing to do with it. He was helping me, that’s all.”

“Shut up, Lonnie,” somebody shouted at him. “You’re so excited you don’t know what you’re saying. You’re taking up for a nigger when you talk like that.”

People were crowding around him so tightly he felt as if he were being squeezed to death. He had to get some air, get his breath, get out of the crowd.

“That’sright,’” Lonnie said.

He heard himself speak, but he did not know what he was saying.

“But Clem helped me find Pa when he got lost looking around for something to eat.”

“Shut up, Lonnie,” somebody said again. “You damn fool, shut up!”

Arch grabbed his shoulder and shook him until his teeth rattled. Then Lonnie realized what he had been saying.

“Now, look here, Lonnie,” Arch shouted. “You must be out of your head, because you know good and well you wouldn’t talk like a nigger-lover in your right mind.”

“That’s right,” Lonnie said, trembling all over. “I sure wouldn’t want to talk like that.”

He could still feel the grip on his shoulder where Arch’s strong fingers had hurt him.

“Did Clem go to the swamp, Lonnie?” Dudley Smith said. “Is that right, Lonnie?”

Lonnie tried to shake his head; he tried to nod his head. Then Arch’s fingers squeezed his thin neck. Lonnie looked at the men wild-eyed.

“Where’s Clem hiding, Lonnie?” Arch demanded, squeezing. Lonnie went three or four steps towards the barn. When he stopped, the men behind him pushed forward again. He found himself being rushed behind the barn and beyond it.

“All right, Lonnie,” Arch said. “Now which way?”

Lonnie pointed towards the patch of woods where the creek was. The swamp was in the other direction.

“He said he was going to hide out in that little patch of woods along the creek over there, Mr. Arch,” Lonnie said. “I reckon he’s over there now.”

Lonnie felt himself being swept forward, and he stumbled over the rough ground trying to keep from being knocked down and trampled upon. Nobody was talking, and everyone seemed to be walking on tiptoes. The gray light of early dawn was increasing enough both to hide them and to show the way ahead.

Just before they reached the fringe of the woods, the men separated, and Lonnie found himself a part of the circle that was closing in on Clem. Lonnie was alone, and there was nobody to stop him, but he was unable to move forward or backward. It began to be clear to him what he had done.

Clem was probably up a tree somewhere in the woods ahead, but by that time he had been surrounded on all sides. If he should attempt to break and run, he would be shot down like a rabbit.

Lonnie sat down on a log and tried to think what to do. The sun would be up in a few more minutes, and as soon as it came up, the men would close in on the creek and Clem. He would have no chance at all among all those shotguns and pistols.

Once or twice he saw the flare of a match through the underbrush where some of the men were lying in wait. A whiff of cigarette smoke struck his nostrils, and he found himself wondering if Clem could smell it wherever he was in the woods.

There was still no sound anywhere around him, and he knew that Arch Gunnard and the rest of the men were waiting for the sun, which would in a few minutes come up behind him in the east.

It was light enough by that time to see plainly the rough ground and the tangled underbrush and the curling bark on the pine trees.

The men had already begun to creep forward, guns raised as if stalking a deer. The woods were not large, and the circle of men would be able to cover it in a few minutes at the rate they were going forward. There was still a chance that Clem had slipped through the circle before dawn broke, but Lonnie felt that he was still there. He began to feel then that Clem was there because he himself had placed him there for the men to find more easily.

Lonnie found himself moving forward, drawn into the narrowing circle. Presently he could see the men all around him in dim outline. Their eyes were searching the heavy green pine tops as they went forward from tree to tree.

“Oh, Pa!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Oh, Pa!”

He went forward a few steps, looking into the bushes and up into the treetops. When he saw the other men again, he realized that it was not Mark Newsome being sought. He did not know what had made him forget like that.

The creeping forward began to work into the movement of Lonnie’s body. He found himself springing forward on his toes, and his body was leaning in that direction. It was like creeping up on a rabbit when you did not have a gun to hunt with.

He forgot again what he was doing there, The springing motion in his legs seemed to be growing stronger with each step. He bent forward so far he could almost touch the ground with his fingertips. He could not stop now. He was keeping up with the circle of men.

The fifteen men were drawing closer and closer together. The dawn had broken enough to show the time on the face of a watch. The sun was beginning to color the sky above.

Lonnie was far in advance of anyone else by then. He could not hold himself back. The strength in his legs was more than he could hold in check.

He had for so long been unable to buy shells for his gun that he had forgotten how much he liked to hunt.

The sound of the men’s steady creeping had become a rhythm in his ears.

“Here’s the bastard!” somebody shouted, and there was a concerted crashing through the dry underbrush. Lonnie dashed forward, reaching the tree almost as quickly as anyone else.

He could see everybody with guns raised, and far into the sky above the sharply outlined face of Clem Henry gleamed in the rising sun. His body was hugging the slender top of the pine.

Lonnie did not know who was the first to fire, but the rest of the men did not hesitate. There was a deafening roar as the shotguns and revolvers flared and smoked around the trunk of the tree.

He closed his eyes; he was afraid to look again at the face above. The firing continued without break. Clem hugged the tree with all his might, and then, with the faraway sound of splintering wood, the top of the tree and Clem came crashing through the lower limbs to the ground. The body, sprawling and torn, landed on the ground with a thud that stopped Lonnie’s heart for a moment.

He turned, clutching for the support of a tree, as the firing began once more. The crumpled body was tossed time after time, like a sackful of kittens being killed with an automatic shotgun, as charges of lead were fired into it from all sides. A cloud of dust rose from the ground and drifted overhead with the choking odor of burned powder.

Lonnie did not remember how long the shooting lasted. He found himself running from tree to tree, clutching at the rough pine bark, stumbling wildly towards the cleared ground. The sky had turned from gray to red when he emerged in the open, and as he ran, falling over the hard clods in the plowed field, he tried to keep his eyes on the house ahead.

Once he fell and found it almost impossible to rise again to his feet. He struggled to his knees, facing the round red sun. The warmth gave him the strength to rise to his feet, and he muttered unintelligibly to himself. He tried to say things he had never thought to say before.

When he got home, Hatty was waiting for him in the yard. She had heard the shots in the woods, and she had seen him stumbling over the hard clods in the field, and she had seen him kneeling there looking straight into the face of the sun. Hatty was trembling as she ran to Lonnie to find out what the matter was.

Once in his own yard, Lonnie turned and looked for a second over his shoulder. He saw the men climbing over the fence at Arch Gunnard’s. Arch’s wife was standing on the back porch, and she was speaking to them.

“Where’s your pa, Lonnie?” Hatty said. “And what in the world was all that shooting in the woods for?” Lonnie stumbled forward until he had reached the front porch. He fell upon the steps.

“Lonnie, Lonnie!” Hatty was saying. “Wake up and tell me what in the world is the matter. I’ve never seen the like of all that’s going on.”

“Nothing,” Lonnie said. “Nothing.”

“Well, if there’s nothing the matter, can’t you go up to the big house and ask for a little piece of streak-of-lean? We ain’t got a thing to cook for breakfast. Your pa’s going to be hungrier than ever after being up walking around all night.”

“What?” Lonnie said, his voice rising to a shout as he jumped to his feet.

“Why, I only said go up to the big house and get a little piece of streak-of-lean, Lonnie. That’s all I said.”

He grabbed his wife about the shoulders.

“Meat?” he yelled, shaking her roughly.

“Yes,” she said, pulling away from him in surprise. “Couldn’t you go ask Arch Gunnard for a little bit of streak-of-lean?”

Lonnie slumped down again on the steps, his hands falling between his outspread legs and his chin falling on his chest.

“No,” he said almost inaudibly. “No. I ain’t hungry.”

(First published in
Scribner’s
)

Erskine Caldwell (1903–1987) was the author of twenty-five novels, numerous short stories, and a dozen nonfiction titles, most depicting the harsh realities of life in the American South during the Great Depression. His books have sold tens of millions of copies, with
God’s Little Acre
having sold more than fourteen million copies alone. Caldwell’s sometimes graphic realism and unabashedly political themes earned him the scorn of critics and censors early in his career, though by the end of his life he was acknowledged as a giant of American literature.

Caldwell was born in 1903 in Moreland, Georgia. His father was a traveling preacher, and his mother was a teacher. The Caldwell family lived in a number of Southern states throughout Erskine’s childhood. Caldwell’s tour of the South exposed him to cities and rural areas that would eventually serve as backdrops for his novels and stories. After high school, he briefly attended Erskine College in Due West, South Carolina, where he played football but did not earn a degree. He also took classes at the University of Virginia and the University of Pennsylvania. During this time, Caldwell began to develop the political sensibilities that would inform much of his writing. A deep concern for economic and social injustice, also partly influenced by his religious upbringing, would become a hallmark of Caldwell’s writing.