Stories of Erskine Caldwell

by Erskine Caldwell

  It was not until the first real snow of the winter, which fell for three days during the first week in January, that anything was said about the new town treasurer. Then overnight there was in general circulation the news that Sam Billings had gone to Florida.

  George Williams drove to the village the same afternoon the news reached him over on the back road. He happened to be listening to a conversation on the party line when something was said about Sam Billings having gone to Florida, otherwise George might possibly have waited a week or longer before somebody came by his place and told him.

  He drove his horse to the village in a hurry and went into Clyde Ballard’s store. They were talking about Sam Billings when George walked in.

  George threw off his heavy coat and sat down in a chair to warm his feet against the stove.

  “Have you heard about it yet, George?” Clyde asked him.

  “Sure I have, and God never made a bigger scoundrel than Sam Billings,” he answered. “I wouldn’t trust him with a half-dollar piece of my money any farther than I can toss a steer by the tail.”

  “I heard you was one of Sam’s principal backers,” one of the men said from the other side of the stove. “You shouldn’t talk like that about your prime candidate, George.”

  Clyde came up to the stove to warm his hands and light a cigar.

  “George,” he said, winking at the other men around the fire, “you told me that Sam Billings was your dark-horse candidate — you must have meant to say horse-thief.”

  Everybody shouted and clapped his knees and waited for George to say something.

  “I used to swear that Sam was an honest man,” George began seriously, “but I didn’t think then that he would turn around and run off to Florida with all the town’s money in his pants. At the next election I’m going to vote to tie the town’s money around my old black cow’s neck. I’d never again trust an animal that walks standing up on its hind legs.”

  “Well, George,” Clyde said, “you ain’t heard it all, about Sam yet. Can you stand a little more?”

  “What else did he do?” George stood up to hear better.

  “He took Jenny Russell with him. You know Jenny Russell —Arthur Russell’s oldest girl. I guess he’s having plenty of good times with her and the town’s money down in Florida. I used to think that I had good times when I was younger but Sam Billings’s got me beat a mile when it comes to anything like that.”

  George sat down again. He filled his pipe and struck a match.

  “So he made off with a woman too, did he? Well, that’s what they all do when they get their hands on some money that don’t belong to them. Those two things go hand in hand — stolen money and women.”

  “He picked a good-looker while he was about it,” another of the men said. “He’d have to travel a far piece to find a better-looker than Jenny Russell. And if he don’t have a good time with her he ought to step aside for a younger man.”

  George grunted contemptuously and sucked the flame into the bowl of his pipe. He remembered the time when he had had an eye on Jenny Russell himself.

  “I heard it said this morning that Sam was going to have his hotel property fired so he could collect the insurance on it,” Clyde said from behind the counter where he was waiting on a customer. “If he does that, the whole town assessment will have to be changed so we will be able to collect enough tax money to keep the roads repaired and the schools running.”

  Nobody said anything for several minutes. George glared at each man around the stove. The raising of the tax rate stared everybody full in the face.

  Clyde came over to the stove again and stood beside it, warming his hands.

  “My wife heard it said over the party line last night —” He paused and looked from face to face. Everybody in the store leaned forward to hear what Clyde was going to say. “She heard that Sam Billings murdered one of those rich men from New York in his hotel last summer. I guess he killed him to get his money. He wouldn’t stop at anything now.”

  “Well, I always said that Sam Billings was the biggest crook that ever lived in the town of Androscoggin,” George said disgustedly. “The last time I saw Sam I thought to myself, ‘Now, how in hell is Sam Billings going to keep the town’s money from getting mixed up with his own?’ I know now that I was right in thinking that. We ought to catch him and have him sent to the Federal prison for the rest of his life.”

  “He’ll be a slick eel to catch,” Clyde said. “Men like Sam Billings figure out their getaway months beforehand. He’s probably laughing at us up here now, too. That’s the way they all do.”

  “The Federal government knows how to catch men like Sam Billings,” George said. “They can catch him if they start after him. But I don’t suppose they would bother with him. We can send him to the State prison, though.”

  The men around the stove agreed with George. They said that if they ever got their hands on Sam they would do their best to have him sent to prison for as long a time as the law would allow.

  A few days later George saw another of the selectmen and asked him about Sam Billings. George’s plan of action was to get the Florida police to locate him and then have the sheriff send a deputy down to bring him back for trial. The selectman was in favor of getting Arthur Russell to have the Federal government go after Sam on the charge of taking his daughter Jenny out of the state. In that case, he explained to George, they could get Sam back without it costing the town any of its own money.

  George was in favor of any plan just so long as Sam Billings was brought back and tried for stealing the money.

  Later in the winter somebody told George that Sam had taken Jenny Russell and gone to Cuba with her. After that was generally known, there was nobody in the whole town who would take up for Sam or speak a word in his behalf. He had taken the town’s money and made off with it. That was all there was to it.

  “I never did take any stock in that Billings,” George said in Clyde’s store in the village. “He made so much money out of his hotel he couldn’t be satisfied with what he had of his own, but had to go and take the town’s money too. And if I was Arthur Russell I’d get the Federal law after him for taking Jenny off like he did. If she was my daughter and Sam Billings took her off to Florida for a good time, or wherever it was he went to, I’d get him arrested so quick it would scare the hide off his back.”

  “We made a big mistake when we trusted all the town’s money to him,” Clyde admitted. “It will take us ten years to wipe out that loss. He had almost a thousand dollars when he left.”

  “You were one of the fools that voted for him,” George said. “It’s a pity the voters ain’t got more sense than they have about such things.”

  “If I remember correctly,” Clyde retorted, “you nominated Sam Billings for town treasurer.”

  George went outside and unhitched his horse. He drove home without answering Clyde Ballard.

  Nothing further was heard either directly or indirectly from Sam during the remainder of the winter. There were no bills that had to be paid right away though, and the town was not yet suffering because the funds were in Sam’s possession.

  Early that spring, when Sam usually began getting his hotel into shape for the season that opened in June everybody in town heard one day that he was back home. Sam Billings had been seen in the village early one morning hiring a crew of carpenters and laborers. He had always made repairs on his hotel property at the same time each year.

  And Jenny Russell was back home too, and everybody knew about it the same day.

  There was a crew of twenty men at work around the hotel Monday morning, getting it ready for the coming season. The boards were removed from the windows and doors, and a new boathouse was being built beside the landing float in front of the hotel. All the unemployed men in town went to the hotel and applied for jobs, because everybody knew that Sam Billings paid good wages and settled promptly ever Saturday night. Sam went about his business just as he had always done each spring. No one
told him of the things that had been said about him during the past winter, and he knew nothing about the charges that Clyde Ballard and George Williams and practically everybody else in town had talked about all winter.

  George went to the village the first of the week and heard that Sam was back in town for the summer. He went into Clyde’s store and sat down on the counter.

  “Well, I guess the town’s money is safe enough,” he told Clyde. “Sam Billings is back home, and I hear that Jenny Russell is too.”

  “I heard over the party line last night that Sam bought a big hotel down in Florida last autumn,” Clyde said. “He hired Jenny Russell to go down there with him to see that the chambermaids kept it clean and orderly. Jenny Russell is a good worker, and I guess Sam figured that she was a better supervisor than he could get anywhere else. She keeps his hotel here clean and orderly all the time.”

  “Sure, Jenny is a good supervisor,” said George. “There’s no better worker anywhere than Jenny Russell. I used to think I’d hire her for my housekeeper, and maybe marry her some day. Sure, she is a fine supervisor. Sam Billings is a good businessman and he knows the kind of help he needs for his two high-class hotels.”

  “There’s no sense in worrying about the town’s money,” Clyde said. “Sam Billings is an honest man.”

  “Sure, Sam is. There never was a more honest man alive than Sam Billings. I’ve known Sam all my life. The town’s money is just as safe with him as it would be in my own hands. Sam Billings is an honest man, Clyde.”

  (First published in American Earth)

  August Afternoon

  VIC GLOVER AWOKE with the noonday heat ringing in his ears. He had been asleep for only half an hour, and he was getting ready to turn over and go back to sleep when he opened his eyes for a moment and saw Hubert’s wooly black head over the top of his bare toes. He stretched his eyelids and held them open in the glaring light as long as he could.

  Hubert was standing in the yard, at the edge of the porch, with a pine cone in his hand.

  Vic cursed him.

  The colored man once more raked the cone over Vic’s bare toes, tickling them on the underside, and stepped back out of reach.

  “What do you mean by standing there tickling me with that dad-burned cone?” Vic shouted at Hubert. “Is that all you can find to do? Why don’t you get out in the field and do something to them boll weevils? They’re going to eat up every boll of cotton on the place if you don’t stop them.”

  “I surely hated to wake you up, Mr. Vic,” Hubert said, “but there’s a white man out here looking for something. He won’t say what he’s looking for, but he’s hanging around waiting for it.”

  Vic sat up wide awake. He sat up on the quilt and pulled on his shoes without looking into the yard. The white sand in the yard beat the glare of the sun directly into his eyes and he could see nothing beyond the edge of the porch. Hubert threw the pine cone under the porch and stepped aside.

  “He must be looking for trouble,” Vic said. “When they come around and don’t say anything, and just sit and look, it’s trouble they’re looking for.”

  “There he is, Mr. Vic,” Hubert said, nodding his head across the yard. “There he sits up against that water-oak tree yonder.”

  Vic looked around for Willie. Willie was sitting on the top step at the other end of the porch, directly in front of the strange white man. She did not look at Vic.

  “You ought to have better sense than to wake me up while I’m taking a nap. This is no time of the day to be up in the summertime. I’ve got to get a little sleep every now and then.”

  “Boss,” Hubert said, “I wouldn’t never wake you up at all, not at any time, but Miss Willie just sits there high up on the steps showing her pretty and that white man has been out there whittling on a little stick a long time without saying nothing. I’m scared about something happening when he whittles that little stick clear through, and it’s just about whittled down to nothing now. That’s why I waked you up, Mr. Vic. Ain’t much left of that little whittling-stick.”

  Vic glanced again at Willie, and from her he turned to stare at the stranger sitting under the water-oak tree in his front yard.

  The piece of wood had been shaved down to paper thinness.

  “Boss,” Hubert said, shifting the weight of his body uneasily, “we ain’t aiming to have no trouble today, is we?”

  “Which way did he come from?” Vic asked, ignoring the question.

  “I never did see him come from nowhere, Mr. Vic. I just looked up, and there he was, sitting against that water oak out yonder and whittling on that little stick. I reckon I must have been drowsy when he came, because when I opened my eyes, there he was.”

  Vic slid down over the quilt until his legs were hanging over the edge of the porch. Perspiration began to trickle down his neck as soon as he sat up.

  “Ask him what he’s after, Hubert.”

  “We ain’t aiming to have no trouble today, is we, Mr. Vic?”

  “Ask him what he wants around here,” he said.

  Hubert went almost halfway to the water-oak tree and stopped.

  “Mr. Vic says what can he do for you, white-folks?”

  The man said nothing. He did not even glance up from the little stick he was whittling.

  Hubert came back to the porch, the whites of his eyes becoming larger with each step.

  “What did he say?” Vic asked him.

  “He ain’t said nothing yet, Mr. Vic. He acts like he don’t hear me at all. You’d better go talk to him, Mr. Vic. He won’t give me no attention. Appears to me like he’s just sitting there and looking at Miss Willie on the high step. Maybe if you was to tell her to go in the house and shut the door, he might be persuaded to give some notice to what we say to him.”

  “Ain’t no sense in sending her in the house,” Vic said. “I can make him talk. Hand me that stillyerd.”

  “Mr. Vic, I’m trying to tell you about Miss Willie. Miss Willie’s been sitting there on that high step showing her pretty and he’s been looking at her a right long time, Mr. Vic. If you won’t object to me saying so, Mr. Vic, I reckon I’d tell Miss Willie to go sit somewhere else, if I was you. Miss Willie ain’t got much on today, Mr. Vic. Just only that skimpy outside dress, Mr. Vic, That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I walked out there in the yard this while ago to see what he was looking at so much, and when I say Miss Willie ain’t got much on today, I mean she’s got on just only that skimpy outside dress, Mr. Vic. You can go look yourself and see if I’m lying to you, Mr. Vic.”

  “Hand me that stillyerd, I said.”

  Hubert went to the end of the porch and brought the heavy iron cotton-weighing steelyard to Vic. He stepped back out of the way.

  “Boss,” Hubert said, “we ain’t aiming to have no trouble today, is we?”

  Vic was getting ready to jump down into the yard when the man under the water oak reached into his pocket and pulled out another knife. It was about ten or eleven inches long, and both sides of the handle were covered with hairy cowhide. There was a spring button in one end. The man pushed the button with his thumb, and the blade sprang from the case. He began playing with both knives, throwing them up into the air and catching them on the backs of his hands.

  Hubert moved to the other side of Vic.

  “Mr. Vic,” he said, “I ain’t intending to mess in your business none, but it looks to me like you got yourself in for a peck of trouble when you went off and brought Miss Willie back here. It looks to me like she’s got up for a city girl, more so than a country girl.”

  Vic cursed him.

  “I’m telling you, Mr. Vic, you ought to marry yourself a wife who hadn’t ought to sit on a high step in front of a stranger, not even when she’s wearing something more than just only a skimpy outside dress. I walked out there and looked at Miss Willie, and, Mr. Vic, Miss Willie is as bare as a plucked chicken, except for one little place I saw.”

  “Shut up,” Vic said, laying the steelyard down on
the quilt beside him.

  The man under the water oak closed the blade of the small penknife and put it into his pocket. The big hairy cowhide knife he flipped into the air and caught it easily on the back of his hand.

  “Mr. Vic,” Hubert said, “you’ve been asleep all the time and you don’t know like I do. Miss Willie has been sitting there on that high step showing off her pretty a long time now, and he’s got his pecker up. I know, Mr. Vic, because I went out there myself and looked.”

  Vic cursed him.

  The man in the yard flipped the knife into the air and caught it behind his back.

  “What’s your name?” he asked Willie.

  “Willie.”

  He flipped the knife again.

  “What’s yours?” she asked him, giggling.

  “Floyd.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Carolina.”

  He flipped it higher than ever, catching it underhanded.

  “What are you doing in Georgia?”

  “Don’t know,” he said. “Just looking around.”

  Willie giggled, smiling at him.

  Floyd got up and walked across the yard to the steps and sat down on the bottom one. He put his arms around his knees and looked up at Willie.

  “You’re not so bad-looking,” he said. “I’ve seen lots worse-looking.”

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” Willie giggled, resting her arms on her knees and looking down at him.

  “How about a kiss?”

  “What would it be to you?”

  “Not bad. I reckon I’ve had lots worse.”

  “Well, you can’t get it sitting down there.”

  Floyd climbed the steps on his hands and feet and sat down on the next to the top step. He leaned against Willie, putting one arm around her waist and the other under her knees. Willie slid down the step beside him. Floyd pulled her to him, making a sucking sound with his lips.