Death in the Black Patch

by Wilson, Bruce;

  “Lock the door, Wes,” said Mark from the back of the store. “Art’s already here. You want some coffee?”

  Wes slid the bolt toward the door frame and pulled down the shade. “Yeah, I’ll take a cup.” He walked between the shelves of goods toward the stove. “Evenin’, cousin,” he said to Art’s back.

  Art looked over his shoulder and nodded. “Have a seat, Wes. How was the ride?”

  “It was fine.” He took a cup from the shelf and wrapped a rag around the metal handle of the coffeepot. He poured the cup half full and sat in a chair next to Art and stared at him for a moment. “You’re lookin’ pretty ragged, Art. Is Mollie doin’ any better?”

  “Actually, she’s doin’ a lot better, and thanks for the compliment, cousin. I notice you ain’t shaved in a week, and you don’t smell real good, but I won’t say anythin’ since I don’t wanna embarrass you in front of your handsome brother.”

  “Don’t you two get me in the middle of any argument tonight; I got enough on my plate with Gertrude. That woman is gonna drive me to my grave.”

  Art and Wes exchanged knowing looks. They sipped their coffees while he settled into the other chair near the stove. He poured himself some of the hot liquid and looked at his kin. “What have you fellas decided to do about your tobacco crops?”

  “Slow down a minute, will ya?” said Art. “We just got here. We have to think about hard work and problems all the time, so we actually look forward to comin’ by here and hearin’ about how happy you are runnin’ a store and bein’ married to the love of your life.”

  “I don’t see the humor in that, and I won’t have you sayin’ anythin’ bad about...” he hesitated and said with a grin, “my store.” It took a moment for the others to catch on, but when they did, all three of them roared with laughter. Making fun of one another was something they’d always done, and Wes, for one, had missed it since the tobacco trouble began. They laughed about Connie and Maud, and Art even joked that maybe Connie would love his wife like Mark loved his store. For the next quarter hour they forgot about their troubles and enjoyed being friends. But the warmth and peace couldn’t last while Art was upset by Wes’s lies and Wes was angry about Art’s Night Rider secret.

  “Shall we get down to business, boys?” Mark poured everyone another cup of coffee. “What are you gonna do about your crops?”

  Wes’s smile faded, and Art’s face darkened. They watched each other, neither wanting to speak first. Mark looked at them, knowing they were troubled, but unaware of the secrets they held back from each other.

  Wes finally broke the silence. “I still don’t know what to do. The Morrises, Anthie’s girl’s folks, are joinin’ the Association. So is George, at least that’s what he told me. The killin’ has scared ’em both.”

  “That killin’s got me scared, too,” said Art. “Mollie’s gettin’ better every day, but she’s still not cured, and I got her and four little kids to think about.” He paused a while, his face tense and knotted. “Sometimes it seems like joinin’ would be the easiest thing to do. But I’m still willin’ to wait until we’re sure that it is.”

  Wes looked at Art and said, “I’m more mad than scared. Them Night Riders got no right to shoot a fella and in front of his family too. They’re murderers, that’s what they are. If they come around my house, they’re gonna get a taste of it, but it’ll be them that gets killed.”

  “Hold on, Wes,” Mark interrupted. “That happened in some other county, not here. And we got the word out that you’re goin’ to the meetin’ Wednesday, right? So you shouldn’t be worried about the raid no more.”

  Art said, “Yeah, we’re goin’, but I don’t know what else we’ll learn at the meetin’. Survivin’ is all I care about, and unless they got a plan for loanin’ us money or buyin’ our tobacco, a bunch of us’re gonna lose a lot.”

  “Art’s right,” said Wes. He turned to Art. “I know you got a sick wife and your kids are young. Most of mine are grown up, and Zora’s doin’ just fine, but I still worry about ’em. It would be easy to just give up and join the Association. It’d be easy to think about havin’ lots of money after harvest, too.”

  Surprised, Mark sat back in his chair. “Joinin’ might be the best thing to do, Wes.” Mark couldn’t believe that Wes would actually consider selling his tobacco.

  “It might,” he said sitting up straighter in the chair. “But I’ll tell you this, and I know you’ve heard me say it before. I ain’t gonna let anybody tell me what to do about my family or my crop. They ain’t got the right to force me to do anythin’. If, and I do mean if, I decide to sell my crop to that lyin’ son of a bitch Jones, then I’ll do it, and anyone who tries to stop me or scare me or hurt my family will pay hard.” Wes was trembling, his hands clenched, his lips a straight slash across his face.

  Mark thought, Someday that man’s pride is gonna get him hurt real bad.

  Mark stood up, hoping to break the tension. “I know that I ain’t got much to add to this since I don’t own a farm. But you’re both family, and I don’t want either of you doin’ anythin’ that’ll get you hurt or run out of town. Promise me you’ll both be real careful about what you do and what you say.”

  Art finally spoke up. “Let’s do this: we’ll go to the meetin’ and find out whatever they got to say about loans or money. If we hear anythin’ about the Night Riders between now and then, we get a message to each other.” He stopped and looked directly at Wes, waiting until his cousin looked at him. “I promise you this, Wes: even though I’m leanin’ toward joinin’, I won’t make a decision until after Wednesday night.”

  Wes stared at Art, his slate-gray face rigid, still trembling. “Thanks, Art,” was all he could say for a moment. “I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

  “All right,” said Art. “In the meantime, let’s all stay in touch. We need to know everythin’ we can before Wednesday night.”

  “You both know that I’ll do whatever I can to help if you get in trouble,” Mark said.

  Both Wes and Art nodded and stood up, and the three men shook hands. Wes thanked Mark for letting them meet in the store, and then he and Art walked out the door, mounted up and headed to their farms.

  * * *

  The moon bathed the farmyard in a silvery blue glow, and the cool wind blowing across the fields brought with it the scents of growing crops to the porch where Wes and Zora sat. Around her shoulders, Zora wore a woolen shawl and clutched it close against her throat. Rufus lay at her feet, his head resting on her shoes. The rhythm of his tail as it swished across the porch wood created an exotic harmony with the breeze.

  Wes sat slumped on the edge of the porch, his feet resting in the scrub grass of the yard. His hands clutched the whiskey jug in his lap, while the shotgun lay on the wood next to him. In the hour he’d been home, he hadn’t taken a drink. He’d pulled the cork several times and even lifted the jug to his lips once, but he didn’t drink from it. He wanted to take a drink; oh Lord he truly wanted to, but he fought it hard. Despite the quietness of the night, his ears buzzed like an army of crickets. His muscles quivered, vibrated, pulsed with some internal, almost painful energy, and his mind would not rest. Everything that he’d worried about and thought about for the past week fought for his attention. The thoughts wouldn’t go away, the voices wouldn’t shut up and they wouldn’t let him rest. From deep below the noise, his voice fought to be heard. It sounded like it came from a child, a weary, hurting child. “I’m so tired,” it said. “I don’t know what to do. I just wanna rest.”

  Zora usually enjoyed nights like this when she and Wes could relax after a hard day of working and dealing with the commotion that having six children generated. But on this night, she was not relaxed. She needed to talk to Wes, and even though she knew that pushing him to talk would probably lead to an argument, she decided to take the chance.

  “Wes, what did you talk about at Mark’s tonight?”
Her voice was soft and clear and flat.

  Wes didn’t speak up right away. He knew where this conversation was heading and what it could do to Zora if he lost his temper. He was worn out from the ride and didn’t have the energy to wear the mask and pretend. He just couldn’t do it anymore. When he turned to face her and the words finally came, they poured out of him—hot, loud and full of anger. “Damn it, Zora, we talked about tobacco and murder! We talked about sick wives and hurt kids! We talked about how hard it is to make decisions when nothin’ seems to make any sense and none of the choices we have are any good. You don’t know how hard it is to decide between feedin’ your kids or losin’ your friends; or decidin’ between protectin’ your property against Night Riders and then losin’ it when you run out of money. All of that’s my job, my responsibility and I gotta think about it all of the damn time.”

  He paused and his voice, though still angry, softened a little. “And I’m so damned tired, I can’t think anymore.”

  Zora felt pinned to the wall by his angry words. She knew that they were unfair and selfish. She wanted to lash out at him and tell him he was wrong, but didn’t want to drive him into doing something like his own father had done. So she swallowed her own bitter anger and, her voice hushed, said, “You’re wrong, Wes, about so many things. We’re a family, you and me, and we can decide this together.”

  “No, Zora, we can’t,” said Wes, his pride taking over. “This is my problem. Only I can choose what to do.” He stood up, holding the jug in his left hand, and reached down to pick up the shotgun. “Now go on back into the house and leave me alone.”

  She watched as he headed across the yard and into the tobacco field, disappearing in the darkness.

  * * *

  Zora rose quickly from her shattered sleep and sat stunned on the edge of the bed. Thinking that the explosion sounded like a gunshot, she started to rise and then heard footsteps outside the door.

  “Ma, what was that? Are you all right?” The urgency in Connie’s voice added to her fear. “I’m goin’ to the kitchen to see what that was. Pa’s out there, ain’t he?”

  “No, wait son. I’ll go with you.”

  When they got to the kitchen, Zora peeked through the window and saw Wes fumbling in the dark, struggling to load his shotgun. Before she could stop him, Connie opened the door.

  “I dropped the damn gun, and it went off,” Wes yelled. “Now get on back in the house.” When Connie hesitated, he shouted, “Damn it, I said to get back in the house.”

  Zora heard a whisper from behind her. “Ma?”

  She turned and saw Mary Lula standing in the dark hallway, holding the baby. Irene and John Stanley stood beside her, their eyes full of tears. Anthie spoke from behind the children. “It was just some stupid thing Pa did, wasn’t it Ma?” Zora didn’t respond, so he turned around and stomped upstairs to his room.

  “I’ll get that bastard next time, I swear I will,” grumbled Wes, still fumbling with the shotgun shells.

  Chapter 17

  Wednesday, May 16

  Wes’s brain felt numb as he sat on a stump in the door of the barn, puffing on a cigarette and letting the smoke drift from his nostrils. The smell of his own body blended in with the stink of the pigs and the pungent odor of mule and cow manure. His shirt reeked of the sweat that permeated the cloth, and the mud on his overalls had caked into a hard crust. Above his week-old beard, sores had broken out on the dry, flaky skin of his cheekbones. He scratched and picked at them with his ragged nails, causing them to bleed. Half a dozen flies circled his head, and several more gathered on the crotch of his pants. He’d eaten little food for the past few days, and the only things he’d had to drink were sour whiskey and bitter black coffee. His mouth tasted and smelled bad. He just didn’t care. He took one more drag from the cigarette and dropped it on the ground, kicking some of the coarse dirt over it.

  All three of the boys were out in the cornfield picking weeds. John Stanley anxiously moved through each row, doing much more than his pa had expected of him. Connie managed to work hard at the task, but he was just too focused on the idea of being married to Maud. Anthie, however, was simply putting in time in the field. His mind was clearly fixed on Sudie and getting away from the farm. Why can’t I get married, he thought. I’m sixteen, ain’t I? Connie ain’t that much older than me, and Ma and Pa got married young, too. He yanked a corn plant out of the dirt and quickly put it back in the hole. I’m glad Pa didn’t see that, he cringed, trying to pay closer attention to pulling weeds rather than corn.

  Zora was praying in her room at the back of the house, and Mary Lula stood in the hallway outside the closed door, listening to the murmuring and occasional crying. Mary Lula was quiet and observant, and she was worried about her parents. She knew her pa was fretting about something and wasn’t sleeping, and her ma had stopped laughing. She had promised her ma she would take care of the family and, wise beyond her eighteen years, she was keeping that promise.

  Something fell on the floor upstairs. I hope that wasn’t Ruthie, she thought. When she opened the door and peeked in, she saw that both girls were asleep on the bed. The wooden bowl that Ruthie’d been playing with lay upside down on the floor, and the dried beans she’d been stirring around inside it were spread in an arc across the hooked rug. Mary Lula smiled at the scene, thankful for her sisters. She stepped back out of the room and pulled the door shut. Sitting down on the top step, she closed her eyes and said a prayer for them, for her brothers and especially for her parents.

  * * *

  The early afternoon sun was bright on the road, but in the woods the light was speckled by the spring leaves on the trees. It wasn’t any cooler there, since the breeze never made it past the first row of trees and scrub. J.D. and Charley waited for the Night Rider captain. They had met him in similar places over the past few months, but always at night, never during the day.

  “I hope he gets here soon,” Charley said. “I ain’t likin’ this one bit.”

  “Quit your whinin’, Charley. He’ll get here. We’ll give him the list, and then we can lay low until the meetin’ tonight.”

  “You don’t think anyone’ll see him ridin’ off into the woods, do ya? Or maybe just waitin’ to see who comes out of the woods after he leaves?” He sucked in a great draught of air. “We’re walkin’ dead men, that’s what we are. We ain’t been shot yet, but we’re dead just the same.”

  J.D. leaned against an old ash tree, whittling on a broken branch he’d found in the rotting leaves that covered the ground. When he’d reduced the stick to white flakes of wood, he looked around for another. Charley paced between the trees, mumbling and sighing and regularly looking out to the road. The ring of sweat under his arms was growing darker against his faded shirt, and he kept wiping his face with a torn piece of an old flour sack.

  “Will you stop movin’ and sit down? ’Cause if you can’t, then maybe I’ll just shoot you myself.”

  “All right, all right,” he said and sat on a fallen log. His voice had changed pitch and sounded like a squeaky saw cutting through wet wood. “I just wish he’d get here.”

  For nearly an hour, there was little activity on the road. Charley had about given up when he spotted the captain’s horse turning toward the woods. “It’s about damned time,” Charley whispered so softly that even J.D. couldn’t hear him.

  “In here, Captain,” J.D. said, stepping a short distance into the daylight. The captain just nodded at him. J.D. turned away and disappeared into the trees. The captain got down from his horse, threw the reins over a tree limb and walked to where J.D. stood.

  “Before we talk about the list,” the captain said, “I wanna let you know that we’re gonna raid a farm here in Lynnville. After we look at your list, we’ll decide who and when. As soon as I know, I’ll find you or get word to you.”

  The two men nodded, and J.D. handed the slip of paper to the captain. He
started to speak but was stopped when the captain held up his hand. He watched the captain scan the names quickly and then read the list again more slowly.

  “How sure are you that these fellas are considerin’ sellin’ their crops?”

  “Well, of the four names on there, we’re sort of sure about three of ’em,” said J.D. “The name at the bottom of the list is one we’re real sure about ’cause we heard someone mention his name at the hotel. We also heard from some other fellas that he’s been talkin’ to that buyer named Jones.”

  “You’re real sure, you say? Sure enough to talk to someone higher up in the Association if necessary?”

  “Yes sir, real sure,” said J.D. Charley started to say something, but J.D. silenced him with a piercing look.

  “Good, then. The fellas in charge are gonna be pleased with the work you’ve done. I’ll be givin’ ’em the list tonight at the meetin’.” He looked at each of them and said, “It’s okay for you two to be at the meetin’ place tonight, but don’t come inside or let any fellas see you hangin’ around. If I need you, I’ll step outside the door and give you a whistle. When you hear it, stay in the shadows and slip inside when no one’s watchin’.”

  “All right, Captain. We’ll be there. The meetin’ starts at seven o’clock, right?”

  “Yeah, seven, but don’t you worry about bein’ on time; it’d probably be better if you came a little later. That way all of the members and any visitors’ll already be inside the church.” He climbed up on his horse and settled into the saddle. He looked at their sullen faces and then rode out of the woods and headed back toward town.

  “Why’d you tell him we’re sure about Wes Wilson?” Charley’s voice had risen to a girl-like pitch. “We ain’t any surer about him than we are of the others. God almighty, J.D., we’re gonna end up gettin’ killed by the Night Riders, and if they don’t do it, Wilson surely will.” He started pacing again, and this time he was panting like a hard-ridden horse. “We’re dead men,” he said again.