Cropper's Cabin

by Jim Thompson

  This wasn’t the yard I remembered. This wasn’t the house. This had never been any part of me.

  I waited, listening in the morning stillness.

  Faintly, I heard a door creak, and, after a minute or two, the rattle of dishes. They were up—someone was up.

  I looked down at the axe, twirled it slowly, watching it glisten in the sun. I pushed through the weeds and the grass and the sunflowers and stepped up on the porch.

  I moved over to the door and stopped, looking in at him.

  “Hello, Pa,” I said.

  21

  He was sitting at the table, eating or just starting to eat, his head bent over a bowl of something dry and powdery. He looked up slowly, raising a spoonful of the stuff at the same time, and some of it moved with his breathing, puffed away from the spoon. And I saw that it was cornmeal—dry, uncooked.

  “Pa,” I said.

  He hesitated. Then he let his head come all the way up until he was looking straight at me. And his eyes and mouth were like holes in the bottom of a dirty nest, in the gray matted stubble of his beard.

  “No, sir”—he looked at me, shaking his head—“Can’t fool me. You ain’t there. You’re”—he giggled craftily—“you’re there, you prove it. Go’n get her. She’s off over to them oil workers’ camp. You get her, an’… an’ you know. Me’n you together, huh?”

  And I—

  I don’t know. I don’t know quite how to put it.

  Somehow I must have had the idea that everything would stand still; that I’d come back and pick up at the scene I’d left: the two of them here together, unchanged, taking it easy, safe, grunting and struggling through the nights, then lying back gloating, grinning and whispering about the thing they’d done to me. I’d seen them that way in my mind a thousand times, and nothing beyond that. I had to collect for it. For Sandstone. For Donna. For all that he’d taken away from me, while he’d been here, safe, taking it easy while…

  Safe? Taking it…?

  I felt lost. Empty.

  I should have known, by the way the yard was, the yard and the field and the house, the rot and the decay out there, and the filth and the dirt in here—I should have known that nothing stands still; that there is always change in one way or another—upward or downward. But still the picture had been there, and part of it still was. The one part, the only part, I’d really seen in my mind.

  Him sitting there in the kitchen. Me in the doorway. And the sharp, shiny axe in my hands. And I had to use that axe for just one thing, didn’t I?

  I stepped forward suddenly, swinging the axe back over my shoulder. I brought it down, whistling through the air, and he ducked and toppled backwards, tumbled over in his chair to the floor.

  So I did use it to chop wood. I chopped up the top of the table, whacking it into kindling and splinters. And I scooped up an armful, poked and jammed it into the stove and started a fire.

  He’d gotten to his feet. He stood humped over, giggling that crafty giggle. I whirled on him, swinging the axe again. I let go of it and it flashed across the room, smacked quivering into the wall of the house.

  “There,” I panted, “you do that next time. You do it, hear me? Cook. Wash. Chop up the furniture if you have to, but do it!”

  “Can’t fool me. You ain’t really…”

  “You know I’m here,” I said. “You knew I was out there this morning. And all my coming back meant to you was a chance to get something, to keep on taking. Anything. To get a fire built, if nothing more. Anything at all so long as you could get—get without putting out. What’s the matter with you?” I took a step forward, reaching, but I wasn’t going to put my hands on that. “You’re not sick. What in the name of God is the matter with you?”

  But I knew what it was. Because I knew he hadn’t changed, after all. He was like he’d always been. Just more like he’d always been.

  He wouldn’t give up, yet. It was his one way left of getting, as he saw it, and it was hard to give up.

  “Got to show me. You’re Tom, you go an’ get her. Bring her back here an’…”

  “Stop it,” I said.

  “Gotta have her, an’ that’ll prove it. You go…”

  And I laughed, and that stopped him.

  “You’re not crazy,” I said. “You know exactly what you’re doing. You know what you’ve done. You were never thinking sharper in your life, and all you can do with that thinking is this. What do you want it for? What does it get you? Look around you—take a look at yourself and tell me this means something to you. Weeds, filth, the house falling apart, and you sitting here like a—like a toad in a trash pile, sinking deeper and deeper and doing nothing, waiting for someone to…”

  “Tom. It’s been mighty hard here without…”

  “Here,” I said. “It was hard here! You tell me it was hard here!”

  “But you wanted to go on, didn’t you? There wasn’t nothin’ to go on for, but you… went on.”

  I shook my head. That wasn’t the same thing. I couldn’t help being in Sandstone; the way I lived there. I hadn’t had any choice like he…

  But couldn’t I have helped being there? Couldn’t I have helped the things that helped to put me there? Couldn’t I have helped the way I lived there, doing nothing for myself but making them keep me alive?

  And did he have a choice? Had he had one, being what he was?

  “All right,” I said. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t care. I don’t care what you do or don’t do. I didn’t come here because I—I—”

  Suddenly, I knew why I’d come; and I knew it was ten times worse than the other. Not the clean sharp blow of the axe, to finish everything in a second. But to do what I’d done; chop wood and build a fire and anything else that needed doing. Like this that I was doing now. Trying to find a reason, an excuse, to stay; to watch him die, rot, gradually, little by little while I tried to fight off the rot. Because I’d always done that, and I hadn’t really changed any more than he had.

  I wished he’d say something. Do something. Anything that would break the link between us, let me turn my back and walk out of here. Let him live as he had to. Let me live as I wanted to.

  While I still had a choice.

  “Tom”—the crafty glitter was back in his eyes—“I know why you came.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I’ll bet you do.”

  “You knew me, didn’t you? You knew your ol’ Pa’d hide you out. But I’ll tell you somethin’—you don’t need to hide out. I know who done it, Tom.”

  “Hide out?” I frowned. “I don’t—Oh,” I said.

  “Uh-huh. I don’t get around no more, just don’t seem no sense in it somehow. But I hear a thing or two, an’ I know who done it…”

  He knew. He and the whole state of Oklahoma. But he wouldn’t see that, he wouldn’t think or hear beyond the point of what it meant to him. What he could get out of it.

  “You want to know who it was, Tom? You don’t want ’em to catch you an’ take you back to Sandstone? I reckon you sure don’t want that, do you?”

  “Who was it?” I said.

  “Huh-uh,” he shook his head, grinning. “Not so fast. You write out a little note to that Injun girl. Tell her you got to have some money—about a, well, what’s it worth to you, anyways? What’ll you give me to tell you?”

  I sighed, and I felt my shoulders straightening. It was like a thousand pounds had been lifted off my back.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Thanks a lot, Pa.”

  “Huh? Where you think you’re going? You go out that door, an’ I’ll…”

  “I don’t know where I’m going,” I said. “Or what I’ll do.”

  “I’ll sic the law on you! You write that Injun girl or…”

  “I’ll get work as soon as I can. I’ll send you a little money when I can. But don’t ever try to see me. Don’t ever speak to me if you do see me.”

  I walked out the doorway, and his voice followed me shrieking, “You’ll see! I’ll…” But he didn’t follow
me to the door, and the shrieking stopped in a moment. Nothing was worth any effort. There was nothing that effort would get.

  I pushed my way through the weeds, and he was a million miles behind me with every step.

  I felt empty but I wasn’t hungry; tired but I didn’t want to rest.

  I plodded on through the weeds toward the road.

  My head ached, and my eyes felt tired and hot. I tried to think—figure out what I was going to do. Because I knew the one thing I’d wanted most would be the wrong thing now. Kossmeyer’s hunch might be right, but you can’t run a life on hunches. She might be willing to start giving again, giving where nothing could be given in return, but you can’t run a life on giving. It wouldn’t be a good life for either of us.

  I could wait. A man does what he has to, and I had to wait. Perhaps we would have Christmas dinner together. If not this Christmas, the next; if not that, the next. The when of it wasn’t important, but the how, and what happened afterwards. Afterwards: building something that would last instead of something that the first strong wind would blow away. One thing was certain. When we had that dinner, I’d have earned it. It might not be anything more than sowbelly and beans, but I’d be doing the giving.

  Now, there was work to do, thinking—real thinking, not wishing; so much, so many things, that it was hard to judge where to begin. The past was all mixed up with the future, and I had to sort it out and smooth it out, patch up the back-trail while I got to work on the new one. And I didn’t know where to begin. And I had to begin somewhere fast. I had to do something. I felt achy and empty, and kind of scared.

  I walked with my head down, seeing nothing but the weeds in front of me, my feet moving one in front of the other. And then they slowed up, all by themselves it seemed like. They stopped by themselves, like they knew a lot better what to do than I did.

  I turned and looked back. I walked back.

  There was a bird’s nest built on the trestle of the well-pull. I reached up and lifted it down, gently so’s not to shake the three speckled eggs. Birds couldn’t hurt the well water, of course. Not for a man who couldn’t taste any more—not really taste—who couldn’t smell or feel or… But they might be hurt. They might get too smart and sassy for their feathers, the young’uns, and they wouldn’t get another chance at life. If they went down into the pit, they’d stay down.

  I walked back toward the road, stepping easy, looking around for a safe fence post or tree crotch I could put the nest in. And somehow my own problems kind of slid away from me. Somehow this was my problem, saving something that might be lost without my help, and there wasn’t anything more important.

  I reached the road. The grin—I’d started to grin without knowing it—froze on my mouth.

  The weeds had hidden the road; so I don’t know how long the car had been there; I don’t know how long she’d been waiting. And there was nothing in her expression to tell me why she had come or why she had waited. To tell me off, maybe. Or maybe to do the opposite—tell me everything was all right. Probably she didn’t know why herself. She’d simply come here because she had to, as I’d had to, and she’d been as mixed up as I was about the next step.

  She came forward, slowly, neither smiling nor frowning, her eyes fastened on mine. Waiting, I guess, for me to lead off, say something. And there was nothing I could say—not now, so soon. All I could think of was to turn and run.

  She kept on coming, and I began to tremble; in another second I knew I’d be running… Save something? Hell, how could a man save something when he couldn’t save himself? There was a great silence, and out of it came only one voice, yelling at me to run and keep on running forever. Yelling at me not to do anything, not to try to rebuild. Because you’ll be disappointed, Tom. It just isn’t worth the disappointment, and heartbreak. They’ll never forget that trial, kid. They’ll never let you or her forget it. They’ll laugh at you; or, worse, they’ll pity you. And you’re ignorant, uneducated, and your health isn’t good, and—What can you do, anyway? What can you rebuild with? Think it over, Tommy. Think of everything you’ve got to fight. Keep thinking—that you’ll lose even if you win. Then go and hide. Bury yourself. And stay buried. Run away from—

  Her hands went around mine, steadying them on the nest. And it was odd that they should steady them, for hers were trembling, too, but that’s the way it was. Like in algebra, sort of; the two minuses together had made a plus.

  The voice stopped yelling at me to run. It saw I wasn’t going to, I guess, so it just plumb gave up. It went away and stayed away, leaving us there together. And there was nothing we could say that would’ve been right—nothing that wouldn’t have been as awkward and embarrassed-sounding as we felt. So we didn’t say anything, either of us.

  We just stood there silently in the November sunlight, kind of stiff and formal-ish; thinking out the next step, getting used to each other gradually. We stood looking down into the nest, wondering, deciding rather, what to do with this new life in our hands.…

  About the Author

  Jim Thompson (1906–1977), widely celebrated as America’s “Dimestore Dostoevsky,” was one of the most prolific crime-fiction writers of his generation. As a teenager, he sold his first story to True Detective, and he went on to write twenty-nine acclaimed novels. He also cowrote two original screenplays (for the Stanley Kubrick films The Killing and Paths of Glory). Several of his novels have been adapted into films, including the noir classics The Killer Inside Me; After Dark, My Sweet; and The Grifters.

  mulhollandbooks.com/jimthompson

  … and Texas by the Tail

  Mulholland Books also publishes Jim Thompson’s Texas by the Tail.

  Following is an excerpt from the novel’s opening pages.

  Lint-like threads of cigarette smoke cloyed around the four men, mingling with the faint fumes of very good whiskey, occasionally swirling away from them with the soft explosions of some very bad words. It was the night of the last day of Fort Worth’s internationally known Rodeo and Fat Stock Show. The room was one of the hotel’s best, a bargain—by its tenant’s standards—at thirty dollars a day.

  As the man next to him crapped out, Mitch Corley took out his wallet and peered into it deliberately through old-fashioned, steel-rimmed spectacles. He was playing the rube here in Fort Worth, the big frog from a little puddle, the small-town rich man. He wore a ranch-style hat, an ill-fitting suit, and a pongee shirt with a string tie (and mannerisms to match). Glancing cautiously from his wallet to the three other men, he looked fifteen years older than his thirty-five.

  “All right with you fellas,” he said, “if I shoot two hundred?”

  “Two hundred?” The red-faced drilling contractor groaned. “Jesus Christ, shoot two thousand if you want to!”

  “Yeah, what the hell?” frowned the cattle buyer. “I thought you were a crapshooter, Pops. God knows you talk a big game!”

  Mitch hesitated, letting their irritation mount, then slowly counted five twenties onto the bed. “Reckon I just better stick to a hundred,” he said. “Don’t feel so lucky tonight.”

  There was a chorus of groans and curses. With dogged patience, the lease dealer suggested that Mitch might do well to pull out. “I reckon the game’s a little too fast for you, Corley. Maybe you better go back to Pancake Junction or wherever you came from, and match pennies with the mayor.”

  “Now, don’t you go a-pokin’ fun at me,” Mitch grumbled. “I done lost three hundred dollars tonight, an’ I aim to get it back.”

  “Then, shoot for Christ’s sake! Crap or get off the hole!”

  Mitch said that he was going to shoot, and he was going to make it two hundred after all. He again opened his wallet, glancing at his watch as he counted out another hundred. Almost eight minutes yet: eight minutes before the payoff and the take-out. He would have to stall a little.

  Clumsily picking up the two dice, he let one fall to the floor. That took care of a minute, in all, which left him approximately seven more to kill. Aga
in—for the third time, now—he took out his wallet.

  “Holy God!” The drilling contractor slapped his forehead. “What now?”

  “I’m goin’ to shoot another hundred, that’s what! You think I’m a piker, I’ll show you.”

  “Shoot it! Shoot five hundred, if you want to!”

  “I reckon you think I won’t.” Mitch glared at him crankily. “I reckon you think I ain’t got five hundred.”

  “Pops,” the cattle buyer said wearily. “For God’s sake, Pops.”

  “All right!” Mitch slammed more bills onto the bed. “I’m shootin’ five hundred!”

  He picked up the dice, setting them with an invisible movement of his fingers; fixing them to the necessary position. He rattled them—or appeared to. Actually, the dice remained set: he was only clicking one against the other. He threw them with feigned awkwardness.

  The red cubes spun down on the bed’s tightly stretched blanket. Came up on a six and an ace.

  “The man sevened,” intoned the lease dealer. “Want to shoot it all, Corley?”

  “You mean a whole thousand? A whole thousand dollars?”

  “Goddammit!” The contractor hurled his hat across the room. “Shoot something! Shoot or pass the dice!”

  Mitch went for the grand. He came out with a six-five. He was taunted and jeered and cursed into going for the two thousand.

  “Why not? You’re shooting with our money!”

  “All right, by gosh! I’ll do it!”

  He spun the dice out again. A four-trey faced up on the blanket. As the others groaned, he reached for the money.

  “I reckon I just better shoot a hundred this time,” he said. “Or maybe just fifty. If that’s all right with you fellas.”

  It was damned well not all right with the fellas, and they made him know it. The hell he’d drop the bet to peanuts while he held a bale of their money!