All Honest Men
A Biographical Novel
Claude & Michele Stanush
New York
Willis as a young man
“All men are honest by the light of the moon.”
—an old Texas sheriff to J. Willis Newton
PART ONE: THE MARK OF CAIN
ONE
In my day I gone by a lot of diff’rent names, but my rightful name, the one give me by my folks, is James Willis Newton. I sign my checks “J. Willis Newton.” Most people just call me “Willis.” I’m eighty-eight years old now.
Lots of people that know me say I shoulda been buried up on Boot Hill, fifty or sixty years ago. They say I shoulda rotted into dirt alongside all them old-time Wild West outlaws that died when they was young, like Billy the Kid or Dynamite Dick Clifton. Well, let ’em think whatever the hell they want. I’ll give ’em this much, I never thought I was gonna live this long myself—me and my partners stole so much money in our day we made that Jesse James gang look like pickpockets. I’ve had prison hounds after me, big hats after me, Baptists after me. I been chewed on, hung up by my thumbs, and near blown to bits by a blast of nitroglycerin.
Some of the ones that worked with me wasn’t so lucky. They ain’t here. But I am. And even if I am eighty-eight, I can still piss a straight line right up the side of a wall. Straight as a arrow. And I got a mind that can call up just about ever’thing that’s happened to me, from the time when I got dropped in Callahan County, Texas, in the year eighteen and eighty-nine, to this very day. Some people say that’s a “camera memory.” All I know is I can call up near ever’ detail—dates, times, what people said to each other, what they looked like, how much cotton they could snatch in a day, all of it. If somebody was packing a big .45 thumb-buster Colt with a star of Texas cut into the pearl handle, or if they had on a pair of Mex’kin cowboy boots with flowers carved into the leather, I can tell you that exact.
Some things is so much in my mind it’s like they was burned there. Like what happened on the twelfth day of September, nineteen and oh-five. That was the day Mister H.L. Pike drove out to the farm to talk to Pa. I was sixteen years old then, and cotton was ten cents a pound.
Back in them days, ever’body in Rising Star, Texas, tipped their hats to that sorry old bastard, Mister H.L. Pike. He was the president of the Prairie State Bank, the only brick building in that whole town.
Being that Mister Pike was who he was, he rode around in a dudey horse carriage that was pulled by two high-stepping bays and glinted in the sun like it was fresh-painted yesterday. Ever’body in our end of Eastland County knowed that carriage and feared the sight of it churning up dirt towards their farms. Wasn’t more’n four or five tenant farmers around them parts that didn’t owe money to Mister H.L. Pike.
We owed more’n we could ever pay back.
The sun was a-blazing down that day. Hot, hot, hot. I’ll never forget how hot it was. Ten of us Newtons’d been working steady in the field since the first peek of daylight. We was humped over, our backs about to break, dragging long, heavy cotton sacks behind us down them middles. Even little Joe was out with us, he was only four, stuffing lint into a little seed sack that Ma’d sewed a strap on and hung around his neck. We was all dog-tired and smelling like polecats. And our fingers was raw and bleeding; you can’t snatch that cotton without sometimes grabbing the burrs that was sharp and edgy.
Them rows went on and on.
Mister Pike’s visit to us Newtons that day wasn’t no surprise. We’d been expecting it for some time. And a-fearing it like the other farmers, only a lot more. What was surprising was the thing he come riding in. I spotted it first, then dropped my cotton sack and run for the fence. I couldn’t run fast, my ankle’d got all shot up over some trouble out near Sweetwater, but I hit for that fence as fast as that gimpy leg’d take me. Ever’body else just straightened up and looked.
What a sight! It was a black machine, near the size of a horse buggy, and it was coming down that road lickety-split, a-shaking and a-bouncing from one side to the other. Even at a quarter mile, we could hear it a-clattering. I’d seen ’em in Rising Star, bob-tailed, funny-looking things, but there wasn’t no more’n three or four of ’em in the whole county, and nobody’d ever drove one out to our place before.
Wasn’t half a minute, the rest of the family was a-running for the fence too. Two sunbonnets, seven floppy straw hats. And in a little bonnet, Sister Ila too. She’d been watching Baby Brother on a stretched-out cotton sack at the edge of the field. Ma yelled, “Go back, go back,” but that didn’t stop her, not a’tall. She kept a-coming just like the rest of ’em. It wasn’t ’til Ma caught up with her, and give her a good whack across the backside, that she run back to the baby, bawling.
By the time the thing pulled up in front of the field, there was ten of us lined up outside the fence like birds on a tree limb.
Mister Pike didn’t slow down ’til he got right to where we was standing, and then he slammed on the brakes. That machine musta skidded ten feet ’r more before it hunched and shook and shivered to a stop. Shivers shot up my spine, too, just looking at the thing, like one of them miracles outa the Bible. That could run on its own without being pulled by a horse or a mule. That had so much power in it, it could knock down a cow.
But when I looked over at Pa, I seen his cheek was a-twitching. And Ma’s jaw had set tight.
“Hoddy, Mister Newton. Missus Newton.” Mister Pike climbed outa his machine, took off the slicker he was wearing over his clothes, and shook off the dust. Up front, his chest puffed out over his vest like a fighting cock. And there was a frown on his face; it musta been there when he was born. Mister Pike was the kind of man that just naturally looked important. Six feet tall at least, side whiskers that was long and black, and big dark eyes that could narrow quick as a shot and drill right through you.
“Hoddy, Mister Pike.” Pa’s cheek was twitching a mile a minute now. “See you bought yerself a automobile.”
“That I did. Cover ten times the ground, half the time, in this machine. And in my line o’ work, time’s money.” And then Mister Pike give my old man the damndest look you ever saw, like a banker’s time was pure gold but a farmer’s time wasn’t worth nothing, nothing a’tall.
“What kinda automobile is it?” Pa knowed he was wasting Mister Pike’s time.
“They call it a ‘Curved Dash Oldsmobile.’ Got seven horsepower.” Mister Pike pulled his watch out of his vest pocket and flipped open the lid. “But really, Mister Newton, I don’t have time right now to go on about my automobile.”
Hell, that’s all I wanted them to do—to go on talking about that machine. I moved around to the side of it and eyeballed it up and down, side to side. The body was painted black as pitch, except for the spokes of the wheels and the seat boxes, which was a bright, glossy red. Where the driver set, there was a long metal rod that come outa the floor to steer with, and hooked to the end of that rod was a little brass horn that honked if you squeezed a black rubber bulb. On the front end of the automobile, there was two brass lamps sticking out round and proud, like the breasts on a lady. Wasn’t no engine there, though. The black metal body come up right in front of the driver’s feet and then curved towards him into a roll. But the thing’s hind-end was big and square, like a box, and I figured that’s where the workings was.
At the same time my eyes was glued to that machine, my ear was cocked to Mister Pike and my old man.
“Mister Newton, I’m not happy over this crop o’ yours,” Mister Pike was saying. “How much you think you’ll make?”
“Quarter bale t’ the acre. Maybe not that much.” Pa said it real casual-like, like he was talking to us kids. “It’s the land. Wore-out. No life in it.”
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p; “The land!” Mister Pike’s voice went up. “If it’s the land, Mister Newton, how do you explain those crops over there?”
I peeled my eyes offa his Oldsmobile and looked at where his finger was pointing. To Gib McCutcheon’s land, south of us.
“And there?” He was pointing west of us, to Tom Fonski’s patch.
“And there?” He was pointing north of us, to Rob Roberts’ patch.
“And there?” He was pointing east of us, to Fess Johnson’s patch.
Pa hiked up his pants. “Cain’t speak for them other farmers,” he said. “I c’n only speak for myself. And all I know is, this land here’s cottoned out. Besides which, them other farmers all got a good rain in June. I didn’t get a drop.”
“You telling me all of ’em got rain but you, Mister Newton?”
“That’s just what I’m saying. Them summer storms can be damn queer.”
“Too bad. Let me get my pad out here and figure it.” Mister Pike pulled a pad and a pencil outa his coat pocket. “Quarter bale to the acre. Ten cents a pound, that’s $12.50 an acre. Eighty acres at $12.50 is $1,000.”
I hated the sound of that pencil scratching on that paper.
“My share’s $400,” Mister Pike went on, “assuming you and your family pick that cotton clean, and assuming you don’t get hit by rain ’r hail before the crop’s in. And those’r big ‘ifs’, Mister Newton. You know I already put out more’n $300 on seed and weevil dust. Add on $250 credit for food, already gone. Add to that, twenty percent interest on your loan.”
Hard numbers, I remember ever’ one.
Now Mister Pike was squinting his eyes at his pad and asking my old man who was gonna pay the taxes on that land if them numbers wasn’t gonna add up. “I don’t think I need to be doing business with you anymore, Mister Newton,” Mister Pike said to Pa. “No sir. You’re gonna have to move on.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t gonna stay here next year no way.” Pa hiked up his pants again. “No use working yourself to death trying to make a living outa wore-out land. Already found me another place. Scurry County.”
Scurry County. I knowed it. Erath County. Callahan County. Eastland County. Pa never stayed nowhere more’n one year. He was one of them cyclone farmers. Always moving, always hunting for honey ponds and fritter trees, for God’s Country. Sometimes we just moved over the fence, but we always moved.
“Settle up ’fore you go,” Mister Pike said. “Good-day to you. Mister Newton, Missus Newton.”
He climbed back into the automobile and set hisself down on that black leather seat.
Pa didn’t say nothing.
“Good-day,” said Ma. Her whole body sagged. And it was a big body, ’cause Ma was tall for a woman, and she had bulk, arms that bulged outa her sleeves like hog thighs. I hated it, her being shamed this way. That’s how come, when Mister Pike looked over at me and told me to give him a crank, I didn’t move.
“I said, I need a crank, son.” Mister Pike said it again. “You hear me?”
Ma’s eyes shot over. I seen her look. I still didn’t say nothing, but I did lean over and grab that black iron crank. Then I squeezed it so tight my knuckles went white. I wanted to spin that crank so hard and so rough it’d snap plumb off. I wouldn’t a-minded a whit if Mister Pike had to walk all them seven and a half miles back to Rising Star.
Mister Pike moved a little stick by the steering rod.
“Watch that thing,” he said. “I been having some trouble with it. It might spin on back and break your arm. When you turn it, be sure to keep it going.”
“Don’t you worry.” I pressed my lips together and give that crank the hardest twist I could muster. WHAMMO! It give a kick and spun right on back the other way around. If I hadn’t a-let go quick, it woulda broke my arm for sure. Mister Pike shook his head, moved that little stick again, and nodded at me. I stiffed up my arm muscle and spun. BANGO! This time something caught and the whole machine started a-shuddering. And when the whole machine started a-shuddering, the crank started a-shuddering, and when the crank started a-shuddering, my fingers that was still wrapped around the handle started a-shuddering too. That shudder raced right up my arm and through my chest and down my legs clear to the end of my toes.
Damn! That automobile had power!
Mister Pike pulled on another stick and the machine give a backfire like a mule farting. I quick let go of the crank and hopped outa the way. Mister Pike turned the long rod that was for steering, and that Oldsmobile made a big wide circle in front of us and headed on back the way it come, a-bouncing and a-jumping from one rut to the other. We watched until it got swallowed up in a cloud of sandy brown dust.
Nobody said a word. We just turned around and walked back to the field and went to picking.
Cotton cotton cotton cotton cotton, ever’where I looked, no end to it.
Right hand … left hand …
I couldn’t get that automobile outa my head. That shudder … that clatter … that cloud of brown dust a-puffing out into the hot, hot air, and a-whipping around like a cyclone … and how that machine had the power of seven galloping horses … Seven of ’em! Way off, I could still see Mister Pike’s cloud of dust, and it was getting longer, and longer, and longer.
Right left … left right …
I wasn’t going nowhere … only down one row, up the other … my back was bent, the strap of that sack looped over my shoulder, the veins in my neck a-popping. I jerked them soft white puffs outa them sharp sticky burrs and fed ’em into the long canvas sack a-dragging ten feet behind me and getting fatter, and fatter, and heavier, and HEAVIER! Much as I hated cotton picking, it was something I was good at. Picked two rows a time, while most folks only did one. My fingers was just natural-born fast, fast as a cat’s paw.
Right hand … left hand …
Godamighty it was hot! Like the whole field was the inside of one big blazing oven. I felt like a biscuit left in that oven too damn long, dry and hard and crusty, not a drop of moisture left in me. I needed to straighten up to give my shot-up foot a rest, and get the kinks outa my spine. I took the straw hat offa the back of my head to let some air in, but by then it was Pa—not that car—that was stuck in my mind like a cockleburr.
Ever’body said Pa was a good man, but nobody could figure out what he was good for … Go-day, come-day, God-give Sunday, that was Pa. Little bacon, white gravy and bread, he was satisfied. Couldn’t get him outa my mind. Some people thought he was a good man ’cause if he borrowed five dollars he was apt to give you ten dollars back. Had to be good for something, but what?
All I could see of him, from the rear, was his big straw hat, faded blue shirt, drawstring pants. Picking one row at a time. One-Row Newton. One thing at a time. Wasn’t never in no hurry though even if he tried, he couldna kept up with me. I moved fast as a jackrabbit, no matter where or how I was a-moving. That’s why neighbors needing a extra hand wanted me, not him, to grub ’r plow ’r thin ’r pick …
Right hand … left hand …
Ever’body else—Ma, Joe, Jess, Dolly, Bill, Tull, Bud, Dock—was all humped over like they was praying. Except for Baby Brother in the washtub, at the end of the field, and Sister Ila, taking care of Baby Brother by digging in the dirt with a stick after doodlebugs. When I was five, watching Dock in the washtub, I dug in the dirt too and thought about how when I growed up …
I was gonna be a gin-stand man like Hank Tobin who kept the cotton moving through the blades where the wheels was a-whirling and the belts was a-slapping and the engine was a-rattling, sucking up that cotton from them high-slatted wagons, and when one man’s cotton was finished Hank’d stand in the second-story window and yell “All Out!” and another wagon’d drive up.…
But I didn’t know what I wanted no more.
Right left … left right …
Goddamn!
I near put my hand in the mouth of that devil!
It was thick as my fist, that diamondback rattler was. Curled up around the bottom of the plant, hugging
it for shade. I could almost see it a-panting.
I’d just turned a row and was bending down to snatch the first cotton outa the first burr on the next row when I heard them rattles a-buzzing. Two seconds later, my hand woulda stuck plumb between his fangs.
“Jess! Dock! Joe!”
They all had their backs bent.
“Hey-a, git over here!”
They come over, and they all whistled at how big it was, and how droopy it was. I went over to the wagon to get a hoe. Jess said he wanted to beat it dead so he could make him a bronc-rider’s belt outa the skin. But it was Dock that reached over and grabbed the hoe outa my hand.
“Lemme take a whack at it, lemme take a whack at it,” he said. He was trembling all over.
Dock was fourteen, two years younger’n me. When he was ten, he’d got bit on the head by a mad coyote. It’d happened down in South Texas, where Pa’d took us that one spring, hunting for God’s Country. We was all sleeping out on the ground, on pallets, when something licked Dock on the head, then bit him. Pa had to take him all the way to Austin to get the shots. But ever’ since, when Dock got worked up, he was apt to tremble and shake his head and let fly with a little slobber. It wasn’t foam that come outa his mouth. Just a little flying slobber.
“Lemme take a whack at it!” Dock said it again. “I think it’s got them rabies. Look at its eyes.”
I grabbed the hoe back.
“Ain’t no such thing as a mad snake, Dock,” I said. “It’s jus’ had too much sun.”
I poked at the snake. It jerked its head back. Wilted as it was, it was gonna strike.
I raised up that hoe and ragged back on my heels and WHAM! I come down on that snake so hard its head popped clear offa its body and flied six feet to the south. Its tail was still a-rattling.
“Fool snake,” I said. “If it’d wanted some shade, it shoulda crawled over across the fence.”
All Honest Men Page 1