That was night before last — Thursday night. It was a little after dark then, but I could see Mr. John standing at the barnyard gate, leaning on it a little, and watching me ride off. I’d been plowing that day, over in the new ground, and I was dog-tired. That’s one reason why I didn’t gallop off like I always did on Sunday nights. I rode away slow, letting Betsy take her own good time, because I wasn’t in such a big hurry, after all. I had about two hours’ time to kill, and only a little over three miles to go. That’s why I went off like that.
II
Everybody knows I’ve been going to see Lud Moseley’s youngest daughter, Naomi. I was going to see her again that night. But I couldn’t show up there till about nine-thirty. Lud Moseley wouldn’t let me come to see her but once a week, on Sunday nights, and night before last was Thursday. I’d been there to see her three or four times before on Thursday nights that Lud Moseley didn’t know about. Naomi told me to come to see her on Thursday night. That’s why I had been going there when Lud Moseley said I couldn’t come to his house but once a week. Naomi told me to come anyway, and she had been coming out to the swing under the trees in the front yard to meet me.
I haven’t got a thing in the world against Lud Moseley. Mr. John Turner will tell you I haven’t, I don’t especially like him, but that’s to be expected, and he knows why. Once a week isn’t enough to go to see a girl you like a lot, like I do Naomi. And I reckon she likes me a little, or she wouldn’t tell me to come to see her on Thursday nights, when Lud Moseley told me not to come, Lud Moseley thinks if I go to see her more than once a week that maybe we’ll take it into our heads to go get married without giving him a chance to catch on. That’s why he said I couldn’t come to his house but once a week, on Sunday nights.
He’s fixing to have me sent to the penitentiary for twenty years for stealing his calico horse, Lightfoot. I reckon he knows good and well I didn’t steal the horse, but he figures he’s got a good chance to put me out of the way till he can get Naomi married to somebody else. That’s the way I figure it all out, because everybody in this part of the country who ever heard tell of me knows I’m not a horse thief. Mr. John Turner will tell you that about me. Mr. John knows me better than that. I’ve worked for him so long he even tried once to make me out as one of the family, but I wouldn’t let him do that.
So, night before last, Thursday night, I rode off from home bareback, on Betsy. I killed a little time down at the creek, about a mile down the road from where we live, and when I looked at my watch again, it was nine o’clock sharp. I got on Betsy and rode off towards Lud Moseley’s place. Everything was still and quiet around the house and barn. It was just about Lud’s bedtime then. I rode right up to the barnyard gate, like I always did on Thursday nights. I could see a light up in Naomi’s room, where she slept with her older sister, Mary Lee. We had always figured on Mary Lee’s being out with somebody else, or maybe being ready to go to sleep by nine-thirty. When I looked up at their window, I could see Naomi lying across her bed, and Mary Lee was standing beside the bed talking to her about something. That looked bad, because when Mary Lee tried to make Naomi undress and go to bed before she did, it always meant that it would take Naomi another hour or more to get out of the room, because she had to wait for Mary Lee to go to sleep before she could leave. She had to wait for Mary Lee to go to sleep, and then she had to get up and dress in the dark before she could come down to the front yard and meet me in the swing under the trees.
III
I sat there on Betsy for ten or fifteen minutes, waiting to see how Naomi was going to come out with her sister. I reckon if we had let Mary Lee in on the secret she would have behaved all right about it, but on some account or other Naomi couldn’t make up her mind to run the risk of it. There was a mighty chance that she would have misbehaved about it and gone straight and told Lud Moseley, and we didn’t want to run that risk.
After a while I saw Naomi get up and start to undress. I knew right away that that meant waiting another hour or longer for her to be able to come and meet me. The moon was starting to rise, and it was getting to be as bright as day out there in the barnyard. I’d been in the habit of opening the gate and turning Betsy loose in the yard, but I was scared to do it night before last. If Lud Moseley should get up for a drink of water or something, and happen to look out toward the barn and see a horse standing there, he would either think it was one of his and come out and lock it in the stalls, or else he would catch on it was me out there. Anyway, as soon as he saw Betsy, he would have known it wasn’t his mare, and there would have been the mischief to pay right there and then. So I opened the barn door and led Betsy inside and put her in the first empty stall I could find in the dark. I was scared to strike a light, because I didn’t know but what Lud Moseley would be looking out the window just at that time and see the flare of the match. I put Betsy in the stall, closed the door, and came back outside to wait for Naomi to find a chance to come out and meet me in the swing in the yard.
It was about twelve-thirty or one o’clock when I got ready to leave for home. The moon had been clouded, and it was darker than everything in the barn. I couldn’t see my hand in front of me, it was that dark. I was scared to strike a light that time, too, and I felt my way in and opened the stall door and stepped inside to lead Betsy out. I couldn’t see a thing, and when I found her neck, I thought she must have slipped her bridle like she was always doing when she had to stand too long to suit her. I was afraid to try to ride her home without a lead of some kind, because I was scared she might shy in the barnyard and start tearing around out there and wake up Lud Moseley. I felt around on the ground for the bridle, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Then I went back to the stall door and felt on it, thinking I might have taken it off myself when I was all excited at the start, and there was a halter hanging up. I slipped it over her head and led her out. It was still so dark I couldn’t see a thing, and I had to feel my way outside and through the barnyard gate. When I got to the road, I threw a leg over her, and started for home without wasting any more time around Lud Moseley’s place. I thought she trotted a little funny, because she had a swaying swing that made me slide from side to side, and I didn’t have a saddle pommel to hold on to. I was all wrought up about getting away from there without getting caught up with, and I didn’t think a thing about it. But I got home all right and slipped the halter off and put her in her stall. It was around one or two o’clock in the morning then.
The next morning after breakfast, when I was getting ready to catch the mules and gear them up to start plowing in the new ground again, Lud Moseley and three or four other men, including the sheriff, came riding lickety-split up the road from town and hitched at the rack. Mr. John came out and slapped the sheriff on the back and told him a funny story. They carried on like that for nearly half an hour, and then the sheriff asked Mr. John where I was. Mr. John told him I was getting ready to go off to the new ground, where we had planted a crop of corn that spring, and then the sheriff said he had a warrant for me. Mr. John asked him what for, a joke or something? And the sheriff told him it was for stealing Lud Moseley’s calico horse, Lightfoot. Mr. John laughed at him, because he still thought it just a joke, but the sheriff pulled out the paper and showed it to him. Mr. John still wouldn’t believe it, and he told them there was a mix-up somewhere, because, he told them, I wouldn’t steal a horse. Mr. John knows I’m not a horse thief. I’ve never been in any kind of trouble before in all my life.
They brought me to town right away and put me in the cellroom at the sheriff’s jail. I knew I hadn’t stole Lud Moseley’s horse, and I wasn’t scared a bit about it. But right after they brought me to town, they all rode back and the sheriff looked in the barn and found Lud Moseley’s calico horse, Lightfoot, in Betsy’s stall. Mr. John said things were all mixed up, because he knew I didn’t steal the horse, and he knew I wouldn’t do it. But the horse was there, the calico one, Lightfoot, and his halter was hanging on the stall door. After that they went back t
o Lud Moseley’s and measured my foot tracks in the barnyard, and then they found Betsy’s bridle. Lud Moseley said I had rode Mr. John’s mare over there, turned her loose, and put the bridle on his Lightfoot and rode him off. They never did say how come the halter came to get to Mr. John’s stable, then. Lud Moseley’s stall door was not locked, and it wasn’t broken down. It looks now like I forgot to shut it tight when I put Betsy in, because she got out someway and came home of her own accord sometime that night.
Lud Moseley says he’s going to send me away for twenty years where I won’t have a chance to worry him over his youngest daughter, Naomi. He wants her to marry a widowed farmer over beyond Bishop’s crossroads who runs twenty plows and who’s got a big white house with fifteen rooms in it. Mr. John Turner says he’ll hire the best lawyer in town to take up my case, but it don’t look like it will do much good, because my footprints are all over Lud Moseley’s barnyard, and his Lightfoot was in Mr. John’s stable.
I reckon I could worm out of it someway, if I made up my mind to do it. But I don’t like to do things like that. It would put Naomi in a bad way, because if I said I was there seeing her, and had put Betsy in the stall to keep her quiet, and took Lightfoot out by mistake in the dark when I got ready to leave — well, it would just look bad, that’s all. She would just have to say she was in the habit of slipping out of the house to see me after everybody had gone to sleep, on Thursday nights, and it would just look bad all around. She might take it into her head some day that she’d rather marry somebody else than me, and by that time she’d have a bad name for having been mixed up with me — and slipping out of the house to meet me after bedtime.
Naomi knows I’m no horse thief. She knows how it all happened — that I rode Lud Moseley’s calico horse, Lightfoot, off by mistake in the dark, and left the stall door unfastened, and Betsy got out and came home of her own accord.
Lud Moseley has been telling people all around the courthouse as how he is going to send me away for twenty years so he can get Naomi married to that widowed farmer who runs twenty plows. Lud Moseley is right proud of it, it looks like to me, because he’s got me cornered in a trap, and maybe he will get me sent away sure enough before Naomi gets a chance to tell what she knows is true.
But, somehow, I don’t know if she’ll say it if she does get the chance. Everybody knows I’m nothing but a hired man at Mr. John Turner’s, and I’ve been thinking that maybe Naomi might not come right out and tell what she knows, after all.
I’d come right out and explain to the sheriff how the mix-up happened, but I sort of hate to mention Naomi’s name in the mess. If it had been a Sunday night, instead of night before last, a Thursday, I could — well, it would just sound too bad, that’s all.
If Naomi comes to town and tells what she knows, I won’t say a word to stop her, because that’ll mean she’s willing to say it and marry me.
But if she stays at home, and lets Lud Moseley and that widowed farmer send me away for twenty years, I’ll just have to go, that’s all.
I always told Naomi I’d do anything in the world for her, and I reckon this will be the time when I’ve got to prove whether I’m a man of my word, or not.
(First published in Vanity Fair)
Dorothy
WHEN I SAW HER for the first time, she was staring several hundred miles away. She was standing on the other side of the street near the corner, holding a folded newspaper in front of her. It had been folded until the want ads were the only print showing, and it looked like a paper printed without headlines. Suddenly she blinked her eyes several times and looked at the paper she was holding. Her knees and legs were rigidly stiff, but her body swayed backward and forward like someone weak from hunger. Her shoulders drooped downward and downward until they seemed to be merely the upper part of her arms.
She glanced at the ads every few moments and then searched halfheartedly for a number on one of the doors behind her. Once she opened her pocketbook and read something written on the back of a crumpled envelope. There were numbers on most of the doors, but either she could not see the numerals plainly enough, or she could not find the one she was looking for — I didn’t know what the trouble was. I couldn’t see her face. Her head had dropped forward, and her chin sank to the collar of her dress. She would look up for a moment, and then her head would suddenly drop downward again and hang there until she could raise it.
She was standing across the street within reach of one of the white-way poles. She could have leaned against the pole or else found a place to sit down. I didn’t know why she did neither. I don’t suppose she herself knew.
I was standing on the shady side of the street waiting for something. I don’t know what I was waiting for. It wasn’t important, anyway. I didn’t have anything to do, and I wasn’t going anywhere. I was just standing there when I looked across the street and saw her with the folded paper in her hands. There were hundreds of other people in the street, all of them hurrying somewhere. She and I were the only ones standing still.
It was between one and two o’clock in the afternoon. Men and women were coming out of the restaurants on both sides of the street, hurrying back to work. I had a quarter in my pocket, but I had not eaten any lunch. I was hungry for something to eat, but I was saving the quarter. I wanted to get up to Richmond where I was sure I could find a job. Things were quiet in New Orleans, and I had tried Atlanta. Now I wanted to get up to Richmond. It was July, and there were not many jobs anywhere. I had always been lucky in Richmond, though.
The girl on the other side of the street turned the newspaper over and read down another column of the closely printed page. There were several office buildings and a few banks on the street. Everywhere else there were retail stores of some kind. Most of them had displays of women’s wear in the windows. It was hard for a man to find a job there, and not much easier for a woman, especially a girl, unless she were wearing the right kind of clothes.
The girl put the newspaper under her arm and started across the street. I was standing a few steps from the corner. She came across, holding the paper tightly under her arm and looking down at the pavement all the time. When she reached the curb, she turned down the street in my direction. She still did not look up. She was holding her head down all the time as if she were looking at her slippers. The pavement was hot. It was July.
She walked past me, behind. I could hear the gritty sand and dust grind under her shoes. It made a sound like the sandpapering of an iron pipe. Then suddenly the sound stopped. I looked around and saw her standing almost beside me. She was so close I could have touched her with my hand. Her face was pale and her lips were whiter than her forehead. When she looked up at me, she did not raise her head, only her eyes saw me. Her eyes were damp. They were very blue. She did not want me to know that she had been crying.
I turned all the way around and looked at her. I did not know what to do. Until she spoke to me she held her mouth tightly against her teeth, but she could not stop her lips from quivering.
“Can you tell me where No. 67 Forsyth Street is?” she asked me.
I looked down at her. Her hands were clenched so tightly I could see only the backs of her fingers. They were stained as if she had been handling freshly printed newspapers all day. They were not dirty. They were just not clean. A sort of blackish dust had settled on the backs of her hands. Dust is in the air of every city and some people wash their hands five or six times a day to keep them clean. I don’t know, but maybe she had not had a chance to wash her hands for several days. Her face was not soiled, but it looked as if she had tried to keep it clean with a dampened handkerchief and a powdered chamois skin.
She had asked me where No. 67 Forsyth Street was. She had said, “Pardon me —” when she asked me. I knew she would say, “Thank you very much,” when I told her where the address was.
I had to swallow hard before I could say anything at all. I knew where the number was. It was an employment agency. I had been there myself two or three times a day
all that week. But there were no jobs there for anybody. It was July. I could look across the street and see the number in large gilt numerals on the door. The door was being constantly opened and closed by people going in and coming out again.
“What?” I asked her. It didn’t sound like that, though, when I said it. When you talk to a girl who is very beautiful you say things differently.
I knew what she had said but I could not remember hearing her say it. I had been looking at her so long I forgot the question she asked.
She opened her pocketbook and put her hand inside, feeling for the crumpled envelope on which she had written the address. Her eyes were staring at me with the same faraway vagueness they had when I saw her for the first time on the other side of the street. She searched for the envelope without once looking at what she was doing. It had fallen to the pavement the moment she unclasped the pocketbook.
I picked up the letter. It was addressed to Dorothy — I couldn’t read the last name. It had been sent in care of general delivery at the Atlanta post office from some little town down near the Florida border. It might have been from her mother or sister. It was a woman’s handwriting. She jerked it from me before I could hand it to her. There was something in the way she reached for it that made me wonder about it. Maybe her father had died and she was trying to find a job so she could support her mother — I don’t know. Things like that happen all the time. Or all of her family might have been killed in an accident and she had to leave home to make a living — things like that happen everywhere.
Stories of Erskine Caldwell Page 23