“He pulled the animal’s short, scraggy ears and rolled over with it in the mud.” Perhaps, Miss Willerton mused, that would be over doing it. But a sharecropper, she knew, might reasonably be expected to roll over in the mud. Once she had read a novel dealing with that kind of people in which they had done just as bad and, throughout three-fourths of the narrative, much worse. Lucia found it in cleaning out one of Miss Willertori’s bureau drawers and after glancing at a few random pages took it between thumb and index finger to the furnace and threw it in. “When I was cleaning your bureau out this morning, Willie, I found a book that Garner must have put there for a joke,” Miss Lucia told her later. “It was awful, but you know how Garner is. I burned it” And then, tittering, she added, “I was sure it couldn’t be yours.” Miss Willerton was sure it could be none other’s than hers but she hesitated in claiming the distinction. She had ordered it from the publisher because she didn’t want to ask for it at the library. It had cost her $3.75 with the postage and she had not finished the last four chapters. At least, she had got enough from it, though, to be able to say that Lot Motun might reasonably roll over in the mud with his dog. Having him do that would give more point to the hookworm, too, she decided. “Lot Motun called his dog. The dog pricked lip its ears and slunk over to him. He pulled the animal’s short. scraggy ears and rolled over with it in the mud.”
Miss Willerton settled back. That was a good beginning. Now she would plan her action. There had to be a woman, of course. Perhaps Lot could kill her. That type of woman always started trouble. She might even goad him on to kill her because of her wantonness and then he would be pursued by his conscience maybe.
He would have to have principles if that were going to be the case, but it would be fairly easy to give him those. Now how was she going to work that in with all the love interest there’d have to be, she wondered. There would have to be some quite violent, naturalistic scenes, the sadistic sort of thing one read of in connection with that class. It was a problem. However, Miss Willerton enjoyed such problems. She liked to plan passionate scenes best of all, but when she came to write them, she always began to feel peculiar and to wonder what the family would say when they read them. Garner would snap his fingers and wink at her at every opportunity; Bertha would think she was terrible; and Lucia would say in that silly voice of hers, “What have you been keeping from us, Willie? What have you been keeping from us,” and titter like she always did. But Miss Willerton couldn’t think about that now; she had to plan her characters.
Lot would be tall, stooped, and shaggy but with sad eyes that made him look like a gentleman in spite of his red neck and big fumbling hands. He’d have straight teeth and, to indicate that he had some spirit, red hair. His clothes would hang on him but he’d wear them nonchalantly like they were part of his skin; maybe, she mused, he’d better not roll over with the dog after all. The woman would be more or less pretty-yellow hair, fat ankles, muddy-colored eyes.
She would get supper for him in the cabin and he’d sit there eating the lumpy grits she hadn’t bothered to put salt in and thinking about something big, something way off—another cow, a painted house, a clean well, a farm of his own even. The woman would yowl at him for not cutting enough wood for her stove and would whine about the pain in her back. She’d sit and stare at him eating the sour grits and say he didn’t have nerve enough to steal food. “You’re just a damn beggar!” she’d sneer. Then he’d tell her to keep quiet. “Shut your mouth!” he’d shout. “I’ve taken all I’m gonna.” She’d roll her eyes, mocking him, and laugh—“I ain’t afraid er nothin’ that looks like you.” Then he’d push his chair behind him and head toward her. She’d snatch a knife off the table—Miss Willerton wondered what kind of a fool the woman was—and back away holding it in front of her. He’d lunge forward but she’d dart from him like a wild horse. Then they’d face each other again—their eyes brimming with hate—and sway back and forth. Miss Willerton could hear the seconds dropping on the tin roof outside. He’d dart at her again but she’d have the knife ready and would plunge it into him in an instant—Miss Willerton could stand it no longer. She struck the woman a terrific blow on the head from behind. The knife dropped out of her hands and a mist swept her from the room. Miss Willerton turned to Lot. “Let me get you some hot grits,” she said. She went over to the stove and got a clean plate of smooth white grits and a piece of butter.
“Gee, thanks,” Lot said and smiled at her with his nice teeth. “You always fix ‘em just right. You know,” he said, “I been thinkin’—we could get out of this tenant farm. We could have a decent place. If we made anything this year over, we could put it in a cowan’ start buildin’ things up. Think what it would mean, Willie, just think.”
She sat down beside him and put her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll do it,” she said. “We’ll make better than we’ve made any year and by spring we should have us that cow.”
“You always know how I feel, Willie,” he said. “You always have known.”
They sat there for a long time thinking of how well they understood each other. “Finish your food,” she said finally.
After he had eaten, he helped her take the ashes out the stove and then, in the hot July evening, they walked down the pasture toward the creek and talked about the place they were going to have some day.
When late March came and the rainy season was almost there, they had accomplished almost more than was believable. For the past month, Lot had been up every morning at five, and Willy an hour earlier to get in all the work they could while the weather was clear. Next week, Lot said, the rain would probably start and if they didn’t get the crop in by then, they would lose it—and all they had gained in the past months. They knew what that meantanother year of getting along with no more than they’d had the last. Then too, there’d be a baby next year instead of a cow. Lot had wanted the cow anyway. “Children don’t cost all that much to feed,” he’d argued, “an’ the cow would help feed him,” but Willie had been firm—the cow could come later—the child must have a good start. “Maybe,” Lot had said finally, “we’ll have enough for both,” and he had gone out to look at the new-plowed ground as if he could count the harvest from the furrows.
Even with as little as they’d had, it had been a good year. Willie had cleaned the shack, and Lot had fixed the chimney. There was a profusion of petunias by the doorstep and a colony of snapdragons under the window. It had been a peaceful year. But now they were becoming anxious over the crop. They must gather it before the rain. “We need another week,” Lot muttered when he came in that night. “One more week an’ we can do it. Do you feel like gatherin’? It isn’t right that you should have to,” he sighed, “but I can’t hire any help.”
“I’m all right,” she said, hiding her trembling hands behind her. “I’ll gather.”
“It’s cloudy tonight,” Lot said darkly.
The next day they worked until nightfall—worked until they could work no longer and then stumbled back to the cabin and fell into bed.
Willie woke in the night conscious of a pain. It was a soft, green pain with purple lights running through it. She wondered if she were awake. Her head rolled from side to side and there were droning shapes grinding boulders in it.
Lot sat up. “Are you bad off?” he asked, trembling.
She raised herself on her elbow and then sank down again. “Get Anna up by the creek,” she gasped.
The droning became louder and the shapes grayer. The pain intermingled with them for seconds first, then interminably. It came again and again. The sound of the droning grew more distinct and toward morning she realized that it was rain. Later she asked hoarsely, “How long has it been raining?”
“Most two days, now,” Lot answered.
“Then we lost.” Willie looked listlessly out at the dripping trees.
“It’s over.”
“It isn’t over,” he said softly. “We got a daughter.”
“You wanted a son.”
> “No, I got what I wanted—two Willies instead of one—that’s better than a cow, even,” he grinned. “What can I do to deserve all I got, Willie?” He bent over and kissed her forehead.
“What can I?” she asked slowly. “And what can I do to help you more?”
“How about your going to the grocery, Willie?”
Miss Willerton shoved Lot away from her. “What did you say, Lucia?” she stuttered.
“I said how about your going to the grocery this time? I’ve been every morning this week and I’m busy now.”
Miss Willerton pushed back from the typewriter. “Very well,” she said sharply. “What do you want there?”
“A dozen eggs and two pounds of tomatoes—ripe tomatoes—and you’d better start doctoring that cold right now. Your eyes are already watering and you’re hoarse. There’s Empirin in the bathroom.
Write a check on the house for the groceries. And wear your coat. It’s cold.”
Miss Willerton rolled her eyes upward. “I am forty-four years old,” she announced, “and able to take care of myself.”
“And get ripe tomatoes,” Miss Lucia returned.
Miss Willerton, her coat buttoned unevenly, tramped up Broad Street and into the supermarket. “What was it now?” she muttered. “Two dozen eggs and a pound of tomatoes, yes.” She passed the lines of canned vegetables and the crackers and headed for the box where the eggs were kept. But there were no eggs. “Where are the eggs?” she asked a boy weighing snapbeans.
“We ain’t got nothin’ but pullet eggs,” he said, fishing up another handful of beans.
“Well, where are they and what is the difference?” Miss Willerton demanded.
He threw several beans back into the bin, slouched over to the egg box and handed her a carton. “There ain’t no difference really,” he said, pushing his gum over his front teeth. “A teen-age chicken or somethin’, I don’t know. You want ‘em?”
“Yes, and two pounds of tomatoes. Ripe tomatoes,” Miss Willerton added. She did not like to do the shopping. There was no reason those clerks should be so condescending. That boy wouldn’t have dawdled with Lucia. She paid for the eggs and tomatoes and left hurriedly. The place depressed her somehow.
Silly that a grocery should depress one—nothing in it but trifling domestic doings—women buying beans—riding children in those grocery go-carts—higgling about an eighth of a pound more or less of squash—what did they get out of it? Miss Willerton wondered. Where was there any chance for self-expression, for creation, for art? All around her it was the same—sidewalks full of people scurrying about with their hands full of little packages and their minds full of little packages—that woman there with the child on the leash, pulling him, jerking him, dragging him away from a window with a jack-o’-lantern in it; she would probably be pulling and jerking him the rest of her life. And there was another, dropping a shopping bag all over the street, and another wiping a child’s nose, and up the street an old woman was coming with three grandchildren jumping all over her, and behind them was a couple walking too close for refinement.
Miss WiIIerton looked at the couple sharply as they came nearer and passed. The woman was plump with yellow hair and fat ankles and muddy-colored eyes. She had on high-heel pumps and blue anklets, a too-short cotton dress, and a plaid jacket. Her skin was mottled and her neck thrust forward as if she were sticking it out to smell something that was always being drawn away. Her face was set in an inane grin. The man was long and wasted and shaggy. His shoulders were stooped and there were yellow knots along the side of his large, red neck. His hands fumbled stupidly with the girl’s as they slumped along, and once or twice he smiled sickly at her and Miss Willerton could see that he had straight teeth and sad eyes and a rash over his forehead.
“Ugh,” she shuddered.
Miss Willerton laid the groceries all the kitchen table and went back to her typewriter. She looked at the paper in it. “Lot Motun called his dog,” it read. “The dog pricked up its ears and slunk over to him. He pulled the animal’s short, scraggy ears and rolled over with it in the mud.”
“That sounds awful!” Miss Willerton muttered. “It’s not a good subject anyway,” she decided. She needed something more colorful—more arty. Miss Willerton looked at her typewriter for a long time. Then of a sudden her fist hit the desk in several ecstatic little bounces. “The Irish!” she squealed. “The Irish!” Miss Willerton had always admired the Irish. Their brogue, she thought, was full of music; and their history—splendid! And the people, she mused, the Irish people! They were full of spirit-red-haired, with broad shoulders and great, drooping mustaches.
The Turkey (1947)
HIS guns glinted sun steel in the ribs of the tree and, half aloud through a crack in his mouth, he growled, “All right, Mason, this is as far as you go. The jig’s up.” The six-shooters in Mason’s belt stuck out like waiting rattlers but he flipped them into the air and, when they fell at his feet, kicked them behind him like so many dried steer skulls. “You varmit,” he muttered, drawing his rope tight around the captured man’s ankles, “this is the last rustlin’ you’ll do.” He took three steps backward and leveled one gun to his eye. “Okay,” he said with cold, slow precision, “this is…. ” And then he saw it, just moving slightly through the bushes farther over, a touch of bronze and a rustle and then, through another gap in the leaves, the eye, set in red folds that covered the head and hung down along the neck, trembling slightly. He stood perfectly still and the turkey took another step, then stopped, with one foot lifted, and listened.
If he only had a gun, if he only had a gun! He could level aim and shoot it right where it was. In a second, it would slide through the bushes and be up in a tree before he could tell which direction it had gone in. Without moving his head, he strained his eyes to the ground to see if there were a stone near, but the ground looked as if it might just have been swept. The turkey moved again. The foot that had been poised half way up went down and the wing dropped over it, spreading so that Ruller could see the long single feathers, pointed at the end. He wondered if he dived into the bush on top of it …. It moved again and the wing came up again and it went down.
It’s limping, he thought quickly. He moved a little nearer, trying to make his motion imperceptible. Suddenly its head pierced out of the bush-he was about ten feet from it-and drew back and then abruptly back into the bush. He began edging nearer with his arms rigid and his fingers ready to clutch. It was lame, he could tell. It might not be able to fly. It shot its head out once more and saw him and shuttled back into the bushes and out again on the other side. Its motion was half lopsided and the left wing was dragging. He was going to get it. He was going to get it if he had to chase it out of the county. He crawled through the brush and saw it about twenty feet away, watching him warily, moving its neck up and down. It stooped and tried to spread its wings and stooped again and went a little way to the side and stooped again, trying to make itself go up; but, he could tell, it couldn’t fly. He was going to have it. He was going to have it if he had to run it out of the state. He saw himself going in the front door with it slung over his shoulder, and them all screaming, “Look at Ruller with that wild turkey! Ruller! where did you get that wild turkey?”
Oh, he had caught it in the woods; he had thought they might like to have him catch them one.
“You crazy bird,” he muttered, “you can’t fly. I’ve already got you.” He was walking in a wide circle, trying to get behind it. For a second, he almost thought he could go pick it up. It had dropped down and one foot was sprawled, but when he got near enough to pounce, it shot off in a heavy speed that made him start. He tore after it, straight out in the open for a half acre of dead cotton; then it went under a fence and into some woods again and he had to get on his hands and knees to get under the fence but still keep his eye on the turkey but not tear his shirt; and then dash after it again with his head a little dizzy, but faster to catch up with it. If he lost it in the woods, it would be lost for
good; it was going for the bushes on the other side. It would go on out in the road. He was going to have it. He saw it dart through a thicket and he headed for the thicket and when he got there it darted out again and in a second disappeared under a hedge. He went through the hedge fast and heard his shirt rip and felt cool streaks on his arms where they were getting scratched. He stopped a second and looked down at his torn shirt sleeves but the turkey was only a little ahead of him and he could see it go over the edge of the hill and down again into an open space and he darted on. If he came in with the turkey, they wouldn’t pay any attention to his shirt. Hane hadn’t ever got a turkey. Hane hadn’t ever caught anything. He guessed they’d be knocked out when they saw him; he guessed they’d talk about it in bed. That’s what they did about him and Hane. Hane didn’t know; he never woke up. Ruller woke up every night exactly at the time they started talking. He and Hane slept in one room and their mother and father in the next and the door was left open between and every night Ruller listened. His father would say finally, “How are the boys doing?” and their mother would say, Lord, they were wearing her to a frazzle, Lord, she guessed she shouldn’t worry but how could she help worrying about Hane, the way he was now? Hane had always been an unusual boy, she said. She said he would grow up to be an unusual man too; and their father said yes, if he didn’t get put in the penitentiary first, and their mother said how could he talk that way? and they argued just like Ruller and Hane and sometimes Ruller couldn’t get back to sleep for thinking. He always felt tired when he got through listening but he woke up every night and listened just the same, and whenever they started talking about him, he sat up in bed so he could hear better. Once his father asked why Ruller played by himself so much and his mother said how was she to know? if he wanted to play by himself, she didn’t see any reason he shouldn’t; and his father said that worried him and she said well, if that was all he had to worry about, he’d do well to stop; someone told her, she said, that they had seen Hane at the Ever-Ready; hadn’t they told him he couldn’t go there?
The Complete Stories Page 6