They Don't Dance Much: A Novel (14 page)

‘Ready?’ I asked.

‘Turn out the lights,’ Smut said. He was already at the front door.

The pick-up was parked almost in Lover’s Lane, with the front turned to the highway. Smut whispered to me: ‘We got to push it to the highway and then get it started. Cold as it is tonight it’d make enough racket to wake the dead.’

Smut got at the front. He rolled down the glass so he could steer and push at the same time. I got behind and began pushing. The truck was cold and stiff and it was hard work pushing it. Finally we got it started down the highway and Smut headed it in the direction of the river. Then he got in the cab and said, ‘Give it one more good shove and get in.’

I gave a long heave and got it started down the hill that runs all the way to the river bridge. It picked up speed and I hopped in beside Smut. He threw it in gear and in a little while it caught up.

Just before you come to the bridge there is a narrow dirt road that branches off to the right. We took down that road when we got to it.

The road was rutty and frozen hard. Smut drove fast. He took curves on two wheels and didn’t slow down for bumps or mud holes. The road was narrow, and it would have been too bad if we’d met anybody that night. I kept bouncing up and down and hitting the top of my head against the top of the pickup. I wished I’d worn a hat. Smut was bareheaded too.

I wanted to ask him where we were going, for the road didn’t lead anywhere in particular. But he was bent over the steering wheel, with his jaw stuck out. I could see he wasn’t in a humor to talk. Finally I decided he must be taking a short cut through the woods to the Charlotte-Raleigh highway.

We rode on for a couple of miles before we came to a place where the road forked. In the middle of the fork there was a wagon wheel laid flat on the top of a short post. There was a mailbox on each wagon wheel spoke. Beside the wagon wheel there were little black-and-white highway signs pointing in different directions. We slowed down there and by the light of the moon I read one of the signs: ‘Bethel Church—4 Miles.’ Smut turned the pick-up to the right.

The road got worse. There were puddles all over it in the low places. They were frozen over, but we cracked through the ice and slid over the road. To the east of us I could see the moon coming up above the pines. It was as cold a moon as I ever looked at.

I had been over the first road we took after we left the highway, but at first I didn’t know this last side road. We went over another hill directly and then I got my bearings. We came to a lane that turned off through some pines. About two hundred yards down, at the end of the lane, there was a black-looking frame house, that had a chimney at each side of it. It was where Bert Ford lived.

Smut slapped on the brakes and stopped the pick-up in front of an oak tree that must have been six feet through at the bottom. He reached inside the pocket of the truck door and pulled out a bottle.

‘Take enough to do you some good,’ he said, and handed the bottle to me.

I unscrewed the top and took such a big one that I choked on it. It tasted like fire, but I coughed a couple of times and took another slug. I handed the bottle to Smut and he drank.

‘What’re we going to do?’ I asked.

Smut put the bottle inside his raincoat. ‘You’ll see in a minute,’ he said.

We got out of the pick-up and walked across the yard. Our steps sounded like horses walking down an asphalt street.

When we got to the front door Smut began beating on it with both hands, and yelling: ‘Hello! Hello!’ Then he commenced kicking the door with his feet. He had just started a good, hard kick when the door opened.

It looked like the door just opened by itself. I couldn’t see a thing that was behind it. It took Smut by surprise and he fell inside. I lost him in the dark. Then I heard him jump up and say, ‘Jesus Christ!’ He snapped on his flashlight and there was Bert Ford standing halfway behind the door. He had on a pair of gray drawers that reached down to his ankles, and a gray undershirt. There was a pistol in his hands.

‘Whatta you want?’ he said. The way he snarled it sounded like he was sore as a boil.

‘Why, Mr. Ford!’ Smut said. ‘For God’s sake put up your gun! It’s me, Smut Milligan, and that’s Jack McDonald out there on the porch. We had a little trip back in these hills and run out of gas. I wondered if you’d spare us enough to make it back home.’

Bert Ford lowered his gun, but didn’t put it up.

‘You don’t have to beat the damn door down,’ he said.

‘You’re hard to rouse,’ Smut said. ‘I’d been calling you for fifteen minutes, seemed like. I just started kicking on the door as a sort of last resort.’

Bert Ford came out from behind the door. ‘Funny thing for a man that runs a filling station to give out of gas,’ he said.

‘We had to go farther than we aimed to,’ Smut said, ‘and on top of that we got stuck in this God-damned mud. If you’d get the county to work these lousy roads out here maybe you wouldn’t be bothered this way.’ Smut sounded like he was hot about the way Bert Ford was acting. Bert relaxed a little.

‘Come on in here,’ he said, and turned into the room on his left. Smut followed him, with his flashlight lighting up the room, and I went behind them.

When we were inside the room Bert Ford got a match off the mantel and lit a kerosene lamp that was on a table beside the fireplace. There was a bed of red coals in the fireplace, with ashes banked up in front to keep them from rolling out on the hearth and maybe on the floor. There were several sticks of split hickory beside the fireplace, on the other side from the table, and some fat-pine kindling wood. There was a bed pushed over next to the wall. From the way the cover was rumpled up I figured it was the bed Bert had been sleeping in. The quilt that was on top of the bed was very dirty.

Bert jerked on his overalls and sat down on a cane-bottomed chair. He didn’t invite us to, but Smut and I sat down too. Bert commenced putting on his shoes. He didn’t look like he was crazy about being roused up like that. The pistol was on the table, about six inches from him. The shades were down in the room and it was quiet in there. There was a big clock on the mantel. It went tick-tooooock, tick-tock, tick-tooooock, tick-tock. I was cold and I shivered.

When Bert Ford finished lacing his shoes, he stood up. His back was to the table, and he stepped over to the foot of the bed and picked up his shirt. Smut stood up then, and stretched. He had his eyes on the pistol on the table. Bert started pulling on the shirt and Smut stepped over to the table and grabbed up the pistol. I jumped up then and Smut handed the pistol to me.

‘Here you are, Jack,’ he said.

Bert Ford turned around. I stood there with the pistol in my hand. It felt cold through the glove. Smut had his gun out and pointed at Bert Ford.

‘Go ahead, Bert, put your shirt on,’ Smut told him. ‘And keep it on. But it ain’t gas we want tonight.’

Bert’s jaw fell open. Then he shut his mouth tight. He didn’t look scared, just sore.

‘All right, what
do
you want?’ he asked.

Smut spat on the hearth. ‘We want your money,’ he said.

‘What money? I got no money!’ Bert Ford said. His face turned red and he commenced swallowing.

‘I think you got some money,’ Smut said. Smut was mighty pleasant about it.

‘I got a little money in a safe-deposit box in Corinth, and some government bonds too, but that’s all I got. I ain’t got ten dollars where I can lay my hands on it right now,’ Bert said.

Smut spat on the hearth again. He looked at the clock, but just for a minute.

‘It’s a lie,’ he said in the same polite voice. ‘We aim to have the money you got buried. If it’s enough we’ll leave the country and not harm you.’

Bert looked around him, like he was trying to figure whether to make a dash for the door or not. But he was on the far side from it. He wasn’t where he could kick over the lamp either, and Smut had his gun on him. Bert licked his lips with the end of his tongue.

‘You can’t get by with this, Milligan,’ he said. ‘You must be crazy.’

‘I’ll take a chance on getting by with it,’ Smut said. ‘Where’s the money?’

Bert shifted one foot. ‘What you got against me?’ he asked Smut. ‘I never bothered you in my life.’

‘I ain’t got a thing in the world against you, but I want your money,’ Smut said. ‘Where is it?’

Bert Ford sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘I got no money; I done told you,’ he said, like he was worried and out of patience.

Smut handed me his gun. ‘Hold it,’ he said. I nodded my head. I couldn’t have said a word if my life had depended on it.

Smut stepped toward the bed; when he got directly in front of Bert he hauled off and smacked him on the chin. It was so fast that all I saw was Smut’s fist on Bert’s chin and then Bert lying back on the bed.

Smut grabbed Bert’s feet and jerked him off the bed and onto the floor. But Bert Ford wasn’t a man to take something like that without putting up a fight. I reckon he knew we wouldn’t kill him before we found out where the money was. He caught Smut around the neck and they had it there on the floor. I took the lamp off the table and put it on the mantel. It was a good thing. They rolled against the table and shook the Bible that was on it off on the hearth.

I backed off and let them go to it. I couldn’t have helped Smut much anyway. First one was on top, then the other. They fought with their fists, elbows, feet, and knees.

But Bert Ford wasn’t as young as Smut was. He got tired and let Smut get on top one time too many. Smut hit him in the face as hard as he could and finally Bert quit struggling and lay there panting, with his eyes shut.

Smut motioned to me with his fingers.

‘Go out to the pick-up. Look in the back. Bring the rope here,’ he said. He was panting and the sweat was trickling down his temples. He raised his arm and hit Bert in the right eye again. Bert groaned and tried to turn his head.

I found the rope and brought it inside. Smut told me where to tie it. I cut it in two and tied half of it around his feet like Smut told me to. Then I started tying up his hands. But Bert didn’t like that. He came to and tried to get up. He nearly tumbled Smut off his chest. Smut doubled his fist and hit him again. A little blood squirted out of the corner of Bert Ford’s eye and he lay still. I finished tying his hands.

Smut got up and stretched. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Pull off his shoes.’

While I was taking off his shoes Smut picked up the tongs that were standing beside the fireplace. He reached inside the fireplace and took a red coal with the tongs. He came back to Bert and sat down across his feet. He put the coal to Bert’s right foot, just above the toes. I could hear it frying in a minute. Bert lay there with his mouth open and his eyes shut. His face was twisted around to one side. I wished we could think up some other way of making money.

The smell of him burning made me a little sick. I reckon that was what fixed Bert too. He opened his eyes and screamed: ‘Stop it, Milligan! God Almighty! Stop it! I’ll tell you where it is.’

‘Okay,’ Smut said. He got up and tossed the coal, that was getting black by then, into the fireplace. He stood the tongs in the corner.

‘Where’s the money?’ he said.

Bert Ford shut his eyes again. ‘In the cellar,’ he said. ‘You go down from in the kitchen.’

Smut walked over to Bert. He stooped and picked him up in his arms. Bert was a pretty big fellow and it staggered Smut for a minute, but he righted himself and started out to the hallway.

‘Bring the lamp, Jack,’ he said.

‘Your flashlight’d be better,’ I said, and picked that up from the mantel where Smut had put it.

‘All right. Blow out the lamp,’ Smut said.

I blew out the lamp and followed them into the kitchen. There was a little place in the corner of the kitchen that looked like a closet, but it was the entrance to the stairs that led down to the cellar. I held the flashlight on the stairs and Smut went first, with Bert Ford in his arms.

It was a dirt cellar, with rocks stuck together with mortar at the top of it. There was a pool of water over in one corner, and dusty spider webs hung down from the roof. There were several hands of tobacco pegged to the walls, and in the middle of the floor there were two barrels standing on end. In one corner there was a spinning-wheel that had spider webs on it.

Smut dumped Bert Ford on the ground. ‘Where is it?’ he asked.

Bert shivered. ‘Look in the old churn over beyond the furtherest molasses bar’l,’ he said.

I hadn’t noticed the churn, but there was one there. I was closer to it than Smut was and I beat him to it. I reached my hand down in the churn. I went a good ways down and didn’t hit anything. I bent over and reached all the way to the bottom. My hand struck something that felt cold all the way through the glove. I pulled it out. It was a lizard, cold and stiff as a board. I handed it to Smut.

He held it up and looked at it. ‘Nothing else?’ he finally said.

I held the flashlight over the churn and Smut looked down in it.

Smut walked over to Bert Ford and put the lizard in his mouth.

‘Take a little nourishment, Bert,’ Smut said, ‘and see if you can’t revive your memory.’ Bert blew and spat and got the lizard off his mouth.

Smut folded his arms and stood there. He looked like he was thinking. Then he reached inside his lumberjack and brought out his one cigarette. He stuck it in the side of his mouth.

‘Sit on his legs,’ he told me. I did it.

Smut lit the cigarette and took one deep draw. Then he socked both his knees hard on Bert’s chest, so that it knocked the breath out of him. He took the cigarette and stuck the burning end in the corner of Bert’s eye; the one that was bleeding. Bert squirmed and began blowing. Smut put one hand over Bert’s mouth and went on with his eye-burning. He held the cigarette in the corner of the eye and bent down and drew on it. I turned my head away.

Bert Ford began trying to say something; he made noises that weren’t quite words. Smut must have taken his hand off his mouth then, for Bert began yelling: ‘I’ll tell you! God above! Quit! For God’s sake quit! I can’t stand it!’ He stopped yelling and commenced talking in a low voice. ‘Please, Milligan. Stop it. I’ll tell you where the last dollar of it is. But stop, now, Milligan.’