Stories of Erskine Caldwell

by Erskine Caldwell

  The man came to the door next to mine and stopped. I could hear the woman’s trembling, and the breathing that jerked her body, and each moment I expected to hear her scream.

  He knocked on the door once and waited. She did not open it. He turned the knob and shook it. She pressed with all her strength against the door, and held the key in its place with fingers of steel.

  “I know you are in there, Eloise,” he said slowly; “open the door and let me in.”

  She made no reply. I could hear through the thin wall the strain of her body against the frail door.

  “I’m coming in,” he said.

  He had barely finished before there was a sudden thrust of his shoulder against the door that burst the lock and threw him inside. Even then there was no sound from her lips. She ran to the bed and threw herself upon it, hugging desperately in her arms the girl who had slept so soundly.

  “I didn’t come here to argue with you,” the man said. “I came here to put an end to this mess. Get up off the bed.”

  It was then for the first time that evening that I heard the sound of the young woman’s voice. She had sprung to her feet and was facing him. I pressed my face and ear against the cold white plaster and waited.

  “She’s as much mine as she is yours. You can’t take her away from me.”

  “You took her away from me, didn’t you? Well, it’s my turn now. I’m her father.”

  “Henry!” she begged. “Henry, please don’t!”

  “Shut up,” he said.

  He strode to the bed and lifted the girl in his arms.

  “I’ll kill you, Henry, if you take her out of this room,” she said slowly. “I mean that, Henry.”

  He walked with the girl to the door and stopped. He was not excited, and his breath was not even audible through the thin wall. But the woman was frantic, and my hands and feet were numbed with the cold and I could not move the muscles of my lips. The young woman had not begun to cry, but through the plaster wall I could hear her breathe, and I could feel the quick movements of her body.

  He turned around.

  “You’ll do what?” he said.

  “I’ll kill you, Henry.”

  There was a moment’s silence, complete and still. He stood at the door, the girl lying in his arms waking slowly from sleep, and waited. Each second seemed as though it were an hour long.

  “No, you won’t do that,” he said after a while. “I’m going to beat you to it, Eloise.”

  Through the thin plaster wall I could hear the smooth slide of his hand into his coat pocket and out again. I could hear everything that was to happen.

  When he pointed the pistol at her, she screamed. He waited until she had cried out, and then he pulled the trigger, not taking careful aim, but nevertheless closing one eye as though he were looking down the sights at her.

  The echoes of the explosion drowned out the sound of his running down the hall and the creaking of the floor under his feet.

  It was several minutes before the ringing in my ears had died out, and by that time there was the sound of people running through the house from top to bottom, flinging open the doors of the heated rooms and of the unheated rooms as they raced towards us on the second floor.

  For a long time I lay against the white plastered wall, trembling because I who was the father had allowed without protest the taking away of the girl, and shaking because I was cold in the unheated room.

  (First published in Story)

  The Growing Season

  THE HEAT WAS ENOUGH to drive anybody crazy.

  The wire grass was growing faster than Jesse English could keep it chopped down and covered up. He had been going over the twelve acres of cotton for five days already, and he was just about ready to give up.

  At noon when his wife called him to dinner, Jesse unhitched the mule from the scraper and turned him loose. The mule walked unsteadily towards the barn, stumbling over the rows as if he had blindstaggers. Jesse’s eyes were bloodshot by the heat, and he was afraid he was going to get a sunstroke. He got to the house, but he could not eat anything. He stretched out on the porch, his straw hat over his face to shut out the glare of the sun, feeling as if he could never get up again as long as he lived.

  Lizzie came to the door and told him to get up and eat the meal she had cooked. Jesse did not answer her, and after a while she went back inside out of sight.

  The rattling of the trace chain in the yard woke Jesse up. He raised himself on his elbow and looked out under the chinaberry tree at Fiddler. Fiddler crawled around the tree, winding the chain around the trunk of the chinaberry. When Fiddler had wound the chain as far as he could, he lay down again.

  Jesse stared at Fiddler with his bloodshot eyes burning into his head until he could not stand it any longer. He dug his knuckles into his eye sockets until the pain had left for a while.

  Fiddler got up and made as if to stand. Instead, he pitched forward like a drunken man, falling into a mass. Jesse felt a new rush of blood in his head each time Fiddler rattled the chain. While watching him, he began to wonder what was going to happen to his crop of cotton. It had rained for a solid week just when the cotton was ready to hoe, and before he could catch up with it, the wire grass had got ahead of him. Lizzie had had a sunstroke the year before, and every time she stayed in the sun fifteen or twenty minutes she fainted. She could not help him hoe; there was nobody to help him. There was not even a Negro on the place.

  When he looked out over the field, he realized how little he had accomplished since sunup that morning. He did not see how he would ever be able to clear out the grass before the cotton plants got choked out.

  The trace chain rattled again. Jesse pushed himself on his hands and feet to the edge of the porch and sat there staring at Fiddler. Lizzie came to the door once more and told him to come and eat his dinner, but he did not hear her.

  Fiddler turned over on the ground and lay with his head up against the trunk of the chinaberry tree.

  Sitting on the edge of the porch with his feet swinging back and forth, Jesse rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and tried to reason clearly. The heat, even in the shade of the porch roof, was blinding him. His eyes burned like hot chestnuts in his head. When he heard Fiddler rattle the chain again, he tried to stare at him through the heat, but Fiddler was by then no more than a blue patch in the yard.

  The crop was going to ruin because there was nobody to help him get the grass out before the cotton plants were choked to death by the wire grass.

  Jesse eased himself off the edge of the porch and climbed the steps and went into the hall. His shotgun was standing in the corner behind the door. It was kept loaded all the time, and he did not stop to see if there were any shells in the barrels.

  “Your dinner’s getting spoiled, Jesse,” his wife said somewhere in the house.

  He did not answer her.

  Outside in the sun and heat once more, Jesse could see the wire grass choking the life out of his crop of cotton. He ran to the far end of the yard and out into the field and began kicking the cotton plants and grass with his feet. Even then the wire grass sprang back like coils in a bedspring. The cotton plants he had kicked from their roots began slowly to wilt in the noonday heat. By the time he had turned away, the plants had shriveled up and died.

  He went back into the yard and kicked the trace chain. One end was fastened to the chinaberry tree, and the other end was clamped around Fiddler’s neck. He stood the shotgun against the tree and began fumbling with the clamp. While he was stooped over, Lizzie came to the porch again.

  “What are you aiming to do with that shotgun, Jesse?” she asked, shading her eyes with her hands.

  When he did not answer her, she ran down the steps and raced across the yard to the chinaberry.

  The clamp was unfastened then. Jesse grabbed the gun and jerked the chain. He jerked the chain harder the next time, and Fiddler rolled to his feet and went wobbling across the yard like a drunken man trying to walk.

  Lizzi
e tried to jerk the chain out of Jesse’s hand. He pushed her aside.

  “Jesse!” she screamed at him. “Jesse, what you going to do with Fiddler!”

  He pushed her behind him. Fiddler wobbled on his undeveloped legs and Jesse poked him upright with the gunstock each time he looked as if he would fall. Lizzie came screaming after them and fell around her husband’s legs. Jesse got away from her before she could lock her arms around his knees.

  Fiddler had started running towards the barn. Jesse ran behind, holding the gun ahead so he could prod Fiddler in the direction he wanted him to go.

  The crop was ruined. But he had forgotten all about the wire grass choking out the tender cotton plants. The grass had got ahead of him before he could stop it. If Lizzie had not been sunstruck, or if he had had anybody else to help him, he could have saved his cotton. The wire grass on twelve acres was too much for one man, once he fell behind.

  His eyes were so bloodshot he could not see Fiddler very well. The heat and the throbbing in his head made him forget everything except that he had to get Fiddler out behind the barn where the gully was. He threw a corncob at the mule to get him out of Fiddler’s way. The mule went into the barn.

  Fiddler ran off in another direction, but Jesse headed him back to the gully with the butt end of the shotgun. He hit Fiddler again with the stock to keep him from going in the wrong direction.

  Lizzie was screaming in the front yard. She did not have her sunbonnet on, and she had already got a touch of heat.

  When they got to the gully, Jesse shoved Fiddler down into it. Fiddler lay on the bottom on the wash, digging at the sides and trying to get out.

  Jesse raised his gun to sight down the barrels, and all he could see was a wiggling gray mass against the red clay gully-bank. He pulled the trigger anyway, and waited a moment. Without lowering the gun, he fired the second shell at Fiddler.

  Fiddler was making more noise than he had ever made before, Jesse sat down on the side of the gully and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. He felt the dried earth give way under his knees, and he moved back a little to keep from sliding down into the gully where Fiddler was floundering like a fish that had been tossed upon dry land.

  “Stop that kicking and squealing, and die, damn you!” Jesse shouted. “Die! Damn you, die!”

  He could not sit there any longer. He had waited as long as he could wait for Fiddler to stop thrashing around in the gully. The birdshot in the shells was strong enough to kill a mule at short range, but they had not been strong enough to kill Fiddler.

  Lizzie screaming under the chinaberry tree and the heat and the blazing sun overhead sent Jesse running to the woodpile at the back of the house. He grabbed up the ax and came running back to the gully. Fiddler was still thrashing around on the bottom like a chicken with its head cut off. Jesse jumped down the bank and struck at Fiddler three or four times. When he stopped, blood was all over the ax handle and blade, and the bottoms of his overall legs were soaked with it.

  After a while Fiddler lay still, and Jesse walked down to the lower end of the gully where the banks were not so steep and climbed to the top. On the way back to the house he could see Lizzie lying on the ground under the chinaberry tree where Fiddler had been kept chained.

  He carried the ax to the woodpile and swung the blade into a hickory log. After that he sat down on the woodpile and wiped his face with his hands and tried to stop the burning of his eyeballs by digging at them with his knuckles.

  From somewhere a breeze came up, and the wind against his hot face made him feel better all over. He ran his thumb under one overall strap and threw it off. The breeze blowing against his wet shirt and skin felt like a gentle rain.

  One of the hounds that had been sleeping under the house got up and walked out to the woodpile and began licking the ax handle. Jesse watched him until he had finished. When the dog started licking his overall legs, Jesse kicked him with all his might. The hound tumbled to his feet and ran yelping back under the house.

  Jesse wiped his face with his hands again, and got up. He found the hoe leaning against the side of the house. He carried it to the porch and pulled the rat-tailed file out of the weatherboarding where it had been stuck since the last time he used it.

  He thought he heard his wife stumbling through the hall of the house.

  Propping the hoe against the porch, Jesse began filing the blade until it was as keen as a corn knife. After that was done, he jabbed the file back into the weatherboarding and walked towards the cotton field, bareheaded in the hot sun, carrying the hoe over his shoulder.

  Jesse was not certain, but he felt he might be able to save his crop. The wire grass could not stand up under a sharp hoe blade, and he could go back and file his hoe with the rat-tailed file whenever it wanted sharpening.

  (First published in Kneel to the Rising Sun)

  The End of Christy Tucker

  CHRISTY TUCKER RODE into the plantation town on muleback late in the afternoon, whistling all the way. He had been hewing new pickets for the fence around his house all morning, and he was feeling good for having got so much done. He did not have a chance to go to the plantation town very often, and when he could go he did not lose any time in getting there.

  He tied up the mule at the racks behind the row of stores, and the first thing he noticed was the way the other Negroes out there did not seem anxious to speak to him. Christy had been on friendly terms with all the colored people on the plantation ever since he and his wife had moved there three months before, and he could not understand why they pretended not to see him.

  He walked slowly down the road toward the plantation office wondering why nobody spoke to him.

  After he had gone a little farther, he met Froggy Miller. He caught Froggy by the arm before Froggy could dodge him.

  “What’s the matter with you folks today?” he said. Froggy Miller lived only a mile from his house in a straight line across the cotton field, and he knew Froggy better than anyone else on the plantation. “What’s the matter, anyway, Froggy?”

  Froggy, a big six-foot Negro with close-cropped hair, moved away.

  He grabbed Froggy by the arm and shook him.

  “Now look here!” Christy said, getting worried. “Why do you and everybody else act so strange?”

  “Mr. Lee Crossman sent for you, didn’t he?” Froggy said.

  “Sure, he sent for me,” Christy said. “I reckon he wants to talk to me about the farming. But what’s that got to do with —”

  Before he could finish, Froggy had pulled away from him and walked hurriedly up the road.

  Without wasting any more time, Christy ran toward the plantation office to find out what the trouble was.

  The plantation bookkeeper, Hendricks, and Lee Crossman’s younger brother, Morgan, were sitting in the front office with their feet on the window sill when he ran inside. Hendricks got up when he saw Christy and went through the door into the back room. While the bookkeeper was in the other room, Morgan Crossman stared sullenly at the Negro.

  “Come here, you,” Hendricks said, coming through the door.

  Christy turned around and saw Lee Crossman, the owner and boss of the plantation, standing in the doorway.

  “Yes, sir,” Christy said.

  Lee Crossman was dressed in heavy gray riding breeches and tan shirt, and he wore black boots that laced to his knees. He stood aside while Christy walked into the back room, and closed the door on the outside. Christy walked to the middle of the room and stood there waiting for Lee Crossman.

  Christy had moved to the Crossman plantation the first of the year, about three months before. It was the first time he had ever been in Georgia, and he had grown to like it better than Alabama, where he had always lived. He and his wife had decided to come to Georgia because they had heard that the land there was better for sharecropping cotton. Christy said he could not be satisfied merely making a living; he wanted to get ahead in life.

  Lee Crossman still had not come, and Christy sat do
wn in one of the chairs. He had no more than seated himself when the door opened. He jumped to his feet.

  “Howdy, Mr. Lee,” he said, smiling. “I’ve had a good chance to look at the land, and I’d like to be furnished with another mule and a gang plow. I figure I can raise twice as much cotton on that kind of land with a gang plow, because it’s about the best I ever saw. There’s not a rock or stump on it, and it’s as clear of bushes as the palm of my hand. I haven’t even found a gully anywhere on it. If you’ll furnish me with another mule and a gang plow, I’ll raise more cotton for you than any two sharecroppers on your plantation.”

  Lee Crossman listened until he had finished, and then he slammed the door shut and strode across the room. “I sent for you, nigger,” he said. “You didn’t send for me, did you?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Lee,” he said. “You sent for me.”

  “Then keep your black face shut until I tell you to open it.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Lee,” Christy said, backing across the room until he found himself against the wall. Lee Crossman sat down in a chair and glared at him. “Yes, sir, Mr. Lee,” Christy said again.

  “You’re one of these biggity niggers, ain’t you?” Lee said. “Where’d you come from, anyway? You ain’t a Georgia nigger, are you?”

  “No, sir, Mr. Lee,” Christy said, shaking his head. “I was born and raised in Alabama.”

  “Didn’t they teach you any better than this in Alabama?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Lee.”

  “Then why did you come over here to Georgia and start acting so biggity?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Lee.”

  Christy wiped his face with the palm of his hand and wondered what Lee Crossman was angry with him about. He began to understand why the other Negroes had gone out of their way to keep from talking to him. They knew he had been sent for, and that meant he had done something to displease Lee Crossman. They did not wish to be seen talking to anyone who was in disfavor with the plantation owner and boss.