The Dirty Parts of the Bible (12 page)

The stars at night

Are big and bright

“That’s your cue,” he said. “Start clapping.”

I looked at him crossways. “It isn’t night. And there’s not a star in the sky.”

“Don’t you know where we are, boy? This here’s the Red River. That means we’re—

Clap-clap-clap!

Deep in the heart of Texas

“Well, not exactly deep in the heart,” he added. “But we’re over the threshold.”

Texas
. Craw might as well have told me that we’d just entered the Land of Oz. It was a mythical place for me—the land of cactuses and cowboys, the land of my ancestors. I couldn’t believe I was really there.

We had to hitchhike the rest of the way. After the boxcar fire, Craw explained, bulls would be searching every train between Oklahoma and Fort Worth.

“Bulls?”

“Railroad cops.”

“They’re mean?”

Craw nodded. “And the meanest of them all is Texas Slim. He’s killed at least twenty hoboes, some only boys. He’d pinch his own mother if she hopped a train.”

And so we started along the highway, holding out our thumbs and choking on the dust kicked up by every passing car. After a couple of miles, I started wondering whether anyone would ever stop for two ragged hoboes. The pavement was baking hot and the air reeked of dead animals. Funny thing was, I couldn’t see any dead animals—I just smelled them.

Then I realized what it was. “I
told
you it would smell.”

“What?”

“Those catfish guts.”

“I don’t smell anything.”

“That’s because you never bathe. Your nose has lost the
ability
to smell.”

Another car roared past.

“Nobody’s going to pick us up with that stench,” I said.

Craw stepped into the middle of the road. “Have some faith, boy.” In the distance, a truck came into view. The closer it got, the faster it came—still, Craw didn’t budge. Finally, about twenty feet away from turning Craw into roadkill, the driver slammed on the brakes. The tires screeched and swerved. As he passed us, the driver leaned out the window shaking his fist and cursing.

Craw tipped his hat, then turned to me and shrugged. “If I’d have known he was a doctor, I wouldn’t have tried to stop him. He must be rushing to an emergency.”

“Doctor? What are you talking about?”

“Sure—didn’t you see the side of the truck? Doctor Pepper, Waco, Texas.”

I shook my head. ”All I saw was a soda pop bottle.“

“Some day, my boy, Doctor Pepper might come to your rescue.”

+ + +

Eventually, the Texans took pity on us. We hitched our first ride in an empty livestock trailer headed to the Fort Worth stockyards—which gave us our second opportunity in as many days to ride on a bed of straw and shit. From there, a produce truck carried us to Granbury. Then, a Ford wagon brought us just outside Glen Rose, right up to the Henry family farm.

As the sun sank behind the hills, we walked up a long dirt drive, past some small houses, rows of apple trees (the apples were still green, but we couldn’t resist picking a couple), animal pens, a rusty tractor, and a truck with “Henry Farms” on the door.

I looked over at Craw. “Remember—no one’s supposed know about what happened to my father.”

“My lips are sealed,” Craw said.

Rounding a patch of scrubby trees, we found the farmhouse—a two-story limestone building with a wooden porch. The white stone was beautiful against the wide purple sky, and lights were burning in the downstairs windows. My heart leapt.

Up till that moment, I hadn’t given any thought to how we looked. Two bums—one black, one white, and both so dirty you couldn’t tell which was which—drenched in sweat, clothes torn and burnt, reeking of cow shit and rotting fish, gnawing on stolen apples. How the hell was Wilburn supposed to know that I was his nephew?

Before we even reached the steps, a man in striped overalls kicked open the screen door and stepped onto the porch, rifle in hand. “No handouts here, fellas. You best be movin on.”

A cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth. He was taller and stronger than my father, with a ruddy, weathered face. “I’m looking for Mr. Henry,” I said.

Without saying a word, the man slowly raised the barrel of his gun.

“I’m his nephew,” I said. “Tobias Henry. From Michigan.”

Wilburn’s jaw dropped open and his cigarette fell to the ground. “Well I’ll be damned!” Then he lowered his gun, shook my hand, and slapped my shoulder. “Damn it all if you ain’t Malachi’s spittin image . . .”

He turned and eyed Craw. “Now don’t tell me you’re kin, too.”

“Allow me to introduce myself,” Craw said with a bow. “Cornelius McGraw, carpenter extraordinaire, at your service.” It was the first time I ever heard his real name.

Uncle Will looked suspicious. “He’s my guide,” I said. “Without him, I’d have gotten killed—at least twice.”

Craw kept his hook in his coat pocket. He held out his left hand to shake, but Wilburn ignored it and turned back to me. “What in tarnation are you doing in Texas?”

“Well,” I said, “not much happens up in Remus, so Father sent me out to see his homeland and get some life experience.”

Uncle Will gave a sharp laugh. “Last I knew, Malachi didn’t have much use for life experience.”

“He thinks I’ve had it easy,” I said—and that was no lie. “He says it’s time I learned to work the land and earn my own keep, the way he did growing up.”

“The way
he
did?” Wilburn laughed again. “The only things Malachi ever worked at was singing songs and chasing skirts. Course, that was before he went off to preacher’s school.” Uncle Will leaned against the porch railing and lit up another cigarette.

A woman’s voice called out from the house. “Wilburn? Wilburn—?”

“That’s my Millie,” he told me. Then he yelled back, “It’s all right, darlin. Come on out here and meet the new hired hand—your nephew Tobias.”

Millie pushed open the door, saw me, and gasped. “Why—Malachi’s boy? Don’t just stand there like an ass, Wilburn—draw some water for a hot bath.” She patted the front of my shirt, sending up a cloud of dust. “And fetch some fresh clothes out of Johnny’s closet, while you’re at it. I’ll put some biscuits on—you boys must be famished.”

“Boys?” Wilburn laughed, pointing at Craw. “That’s the oldest boy I’ve ever seen.”

Millie squinted her eyes, looked Craw up and down, and pulled Uncle Will inside the house. I could hear her through the screen door. “He’s not setting foot in this house.”

“But Millie—he’s kin.”

“Not Tobias. I’m talking about that nigger.”

“Don’t worry,” Wilburn said. “I’ll take care of it.”

I hoped that Craw hadn’t heard. If he did, he didn’t say anything.

A few minutes later, Wilburn stepped out to explain the arrangements. “You can sleep in Jimmy’s room,” he told me. “He’s our youngest. Room’s been empty since he ran off to Fort Worth last winter.”

“What about Craw?” I asked.

Wilburn gazed out over his fields. “We don’t have any other rooms,” he said. I looked up at the house in disbelief—there must have been four bedrooms on the top floor. “But there’s the barn,” he said. “Or the shed.”

“I thank you for your hospitality,” Craw said. “But” —I held my breath, expecting him to decline the offer and take his leave—“I’d better take the shed. Otherwise, I might disturb your cows with my snoring.”
Whew
.

Just to be sure, I asked Uncle Will directly: “Does this mean we have jobs for the summer?”

“I ain’t as young as I used to be,” he said. “Will Junior, my eldest, does most of the work now. I’ve got a hired hand, but he ain’t worth shootin. So—I suppose you can take that as a yes.”

“Craw, too?” I asked to be sure.

Wilburn glanced over. “He ain’t as young as I used to be, either.”

“But I promised to help him. He saved my life.”

“All right,” Uncle Will said, giving up. “I reckon he’ll be good for something.”

+ + +

Later, Millie brought a batch of steaming biscuits out onto the porch, along with butter and jam. Craw and I gobbled them up—they tasted just like Mama’s. At one point, Craw uncovered his hook and speared two biscuits at once. Millie jumped back at the sight.

When Millie left to get my room ready, Uncle Will dragged a thin, yellow-stained mattress out of the cellar and showed Craw to his shed. It was an unpainted clapboard structure with a sagging roof, not much bigger than an outhouse inside, and chock full of tools, machinery, and spare parts. Craw surveyed the premises. “It ain’t exactly a Frank Lloyd Wright, but it’ll do.”

Back in the farmhouse, before I fell asleep, I heard Millie chastising Uncle Will. “I told you to get rid of him,” she said. “And you give him a job?”

“But Millie—”

“He looks dangerous. For all we know, he could be a vicious criminal on the loose. Did you see that hook on his arm?”

“Aw, Millie—he’s nothing but a harmless old coot. I know the type. As soon as he finds out how tough the work is, he’ll be back on the road in no time. You can count on that.”

I hoped he wasn’t right. I didn’t want to lose Craw again.

CHAPTER 16

A
FTER
a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs, Uncle Will fitted me with some old leather boots. “Never go outside without these on,” he said. “You’ve got to guard your ankles around here.”

“From what—cactus?”

He laughed. “I reckon you don’t have to worry much about rattlers in Michigan.”

A chill crawled up my spine.

“But keep clear of the cacti, too. A jumpin’ cactus can reach right out and bite you. And I don’t care if you are kin—I ain’t gonna be the one to pull the needles out of your ass.”

After lunch, we all packed into the truck for a tour of the farm. I was stuck in the middle, crunched between Uncle Will’s shoulders and Craw’s. The main crop used to be cotton, Wilburn explained, before the topsoil dried up and blew away. Henry Farms survived by diversifying. We drove past row after row of fruit- and nut-bearing trees—apple, pear, peach, plum, orange, grapefruit, walnut, pecan. Among apples alone, Wilburn pointed out McIntosh, Cortland, King David, Jonathan, Smokehouse, and a dozen other varieties. Picking apples—now that sounded like a breezy way to spend the next month while searching for Father’s money on the sly.

Uncle Will showed us the common garden, which was shared by him and Millie, Will Junior and his wife, and the hired hands. We went by the small houses Craw and I had seen last night—it turned out that Will Junior and the others lived in them. As we drove around, I kept an eye peeled for anything resembling an abandoned well. I thought about asking, but didn’t want to arouse suspicion.

When we came to an open field, Wilburn shut off the truck. “This,” he said, “is where you’ll be spending most of your time.”

What?
It was a bare plain, all dirt and grass with not a single tree in sight.

Wilburn turned to Craw. “You got any experience handling bulls?”

“Yes siree,” Craw said. “I’ve been dodging them all my life.”

I nudged Craw. “I think he means cows—not cops.”

“The orchard’s carried us through the depression,” Wilburn said, “but fruits and nuts are chump change compared to cattle. That’s where the real money is these days.” He kicked back against his truck and lit up a cigarette. “Right this morning, Will Junior’s checking out some bulls in Fort Worth. And I’ve got ten acres of pasture that needs to be fenced in before the first one arrives.”

Putting up a fence would be more work than picking apples, but it still sounded easy enough. Of course, I had no idea how large an acre was. “Do you want us to do it right now?”

Wilburn spit out a cloud of smoke and slapped my back. “Atta boy! With an attitude like that, you’ll go far. But truly, I’ll be happy if you finish by the first of July.”

+ + +

Craw kept quiet for most of the tour—which was unusual for him. But he made up for it the next day when we started to work on the fence.

As I unrolled a bale of barbed wire, trying not to slice my fingers, Craw sat beneath the shade of a pecan tree, chopping rough branches into smooth fence posts. He steadied the branches with his hook and swung a hatchet with his hand. “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind by
carpentry
.”

I rolled up my sleeves and took a few whacks at the earth with a post-hole digger. The metal blade bounced off the hard ground, sending up a little cloud of dust.

After a while, I became aware of a constant buzz in the air. “What’s that noise? Sounds like an electrical line.”

“Cicadas,” Craw said. “Also known as locusts. Or, as John the Baptist would say,
lunch
.”