He nodded, seemingly exhausted by the effort of moving his head.
“I’ll be all right now,” he said. “It’s mornin’. I’ll be all right till midnight. It’s them small hours I can’t abide no more.”
“You ain’t been eatin’ right,” I said. “That’s all. You can’t hardly expect to go runnin’ around half the night if you ain’t eatin’ right.”
“Hell, Johnny, I ain’t been doin’ nothin’ right. I got this cough an’ the bastard won’t let go. Started coughin’ blood, losin’ weight, got so I could hardly stand up long enough to piss.”
“You gotta eat,” I said. “That’s all you need. I’ll make some stew.”
“That stew’ll probably kill me. You recall the time—” He coughed then, grabbing awkwardly for a stained rag beside him. I could see the blood. I held his shoulders to steady him while he coughed, then turned away quickly so he would not be embarrassed as he cleaned himself as best he could, and so he would not see my face.
“All you need is a little hot food,” I said, “and if you say one more word about my cookin’ I’m gonna eat it all myself.” I gave him the toddy, waited until I was sure he could hold the cup. “We’re gonna have to do somethin’ about that cough,” I told him.
“More whiskey,” he croaked.
“You need a doctor.”
“Like hell I do. I ain’t never needed no doctor. Last time I went to a doctor, I went on over to see Old Doc Martinson, an’ that old quack thumped me an’ pounded me an’ stuck his finger up ma butt, an’ then he charged me a dollar an’ sent me up to that bastard Hawkin’s drugstore with a perscription, an’ Hawkin charged me fifty cents for a little bottle ’bout the size of a bean pod, an’ when I ast him what was inside he told me a whole bunch a crap an’ then let out that it was twenty percent alcohol, an’ I says, damn, Hawkin, I can get twice this much ’shine for a quarter, an’ that’s gonna be a hunnert proof, an’ that was the last time I ever had no truck with doctors, an’ I’m too damn old to start now.”
“You’re too damn sick not to,” I said.
He grunted, and sipped at his toddy, pretending at being silent. But I could see what had happened; the weakness had come across him, and he was trying to finish the toddy while he could still hold the cup himself. I hesitated, then reached out and took the cup away. “Don’t drink that so fast,” I said.
“I wasn’t finished,” he snapped. “Man gets a little under the weather, an’ first thing you know some damn Methodist is runnin’ to snatch his whiskey away.” He dropped his hands to the cot. I pretended I had not seen them tremble.
“You drink this crap that fast, somebody’s like to snatch your butt off an’ you wouldn’t even notice.”
“May be, but he ain’t like to live to tell the tale. Give me my whiskey back.” He reached out for it, and his hands were steady again.
“All right,” I said, “but you take it easy.” I went back to the stove and mixed my own toddy, keeping my back to him. I heard him sigh once or twice, one soft click as the cup hit his teeth, but I did not help him.
“You can mix me another in a minute,” he said finally.
I turned around and set my own toddy down. He was holding his cup out to me, his face a mask of effort. I took it quickly and went and filled it with water. Then I made up a dose, two of every pill that might do him some good, and took it all back to him.
“I don’t want no damn pills,” he said. But he took them almost eagerly, and swallowed all the water. I got him another cup, and he swallowed that too. Then I went and mixed him another toddy.
I left him while he drank it, and took up my own, and settled down in the chair that was closest to the door. My chair. I pretended I was not watching him, that I did not see him resting his cup on his chest after each sip. We didn’t say anything; it took all his strength to drink, and I was lost in thought, thinking about that chair, how once when I had sat in it my legs would not reach the floor and I would sit there and swing them, extending my toes, trying to reach the ground, about the thrill I had known the first time I had managed to touch it, and had known that I was getting my growth, just as he had said I would. I closed my eyes and listened to the muted roar of the air in the flue, to the soft keening of the fire. I heard a slurp as he took the last sip, and I relaxed; even if he dropped the cup, or fell asleep, there was nothing to spill.
Presently his breathing evened and he began to snore, and I knew it was real sleep this time, not the exhausted unconsciousness. I felt better. I got up from the chair, my joints creaking as if I were as old as he, and concocted a stew of venison and beans and carrots in his old iron pot, and set it to simmer. I was hungry now, but I would wait. I mixed another toddy, my hand perhaps a shade too liberal in the darkness. I sat down again and drank.
“I recall the night I met him,” he had said. “It musta been near fifty year ago now, but I recollect it clear. It was in the back room a Hawley’s store, halfways through a Saturday night. Back in them days, there was always a card game at Hawley’s on a Saturday. I ’member this here night I wasn’t playin’ on accounta the night ’fore that I took the train up to Sulphur Springs to see this gal, lived back in the mountains, and wouldn’t nothin’ satisfy her ceptin’ I bring her on back into town to walk around awhile, an’ I had to buy her dinner, an’ then I had to take her on home again on the train, an’ after I done all that, she wouldn’t do nothin’ ’sides kiss me. Plus which, I was clean outa money, an’ I had to walk back down. It wasn’t but eight mile, but I tell you, I never went to see that gal again—she was knock-kneed an’ cross-eyed, anyways. Way I heard it, she ended up married to a fella that worked cook on the B&O. Light-skinned fella. She left on to everybody that he wasn’t colored at all, he was an Eyetalian. Whatever he was, he ended up with that gal; an’ welcome, far as I’s concerned.
“So anyways, I wasn’t playin’ that night, on accounta not havin’ any money. Josh was playin’, though, you better believe that. Onliest thing he loved bettern whiskey an’ women was cards. He had the best pack a coon dogs in the County, but you couldn’t get him to run ’em if there was a card game goin’ inside a twenty mile. I forget who all else was playin’, bunch a the reglar fellas. They was playin’ an’ gettin’ along, an’ all the sudden in walks Mose.
“Course, didn’t none of us know it was Mose; hadn’t none of us never put eyes to him before. But that ain’t to say we didn’t know who Mose was. Pretty damn near the whole County knowed who he was, even if he wasn’t nothin’ but twenty, twenty-one year old. Hadn’t nobody seen him, but they sure as taxes heard of him. Don’t know ’xactly when it begun; somebody—an’ didn’t nobody recall who—come into town talkin’ ’bout some young boy up in the mountains, callin’ hisself Moses Washington an’ makin’ moonshine that was strongern horse piss an’ smoothern a bunny’s butt. There wasn’t no Prohibition then—a man could drink ’thout the government blowin’ snot in his jug—an’ the truth was, the tax on liquor wasn’t all that high, but there’s lotsa folks ’round here that’d sooner sip on home brew than swim in store-bought. Anyways, this here boy was sposed to be makin’ whiskey so fast he’da drowned hisself if it hadn’ta been that he was sellin’ it fastern he was cookin’ it. I tell you, the way they talked about this boy, they had him livin’ up in some damn holla somewheres in some damn mansion with a whole stable a half-time hillbillies tendin’ his fires an’ cookin’ his corn, while all he done was try an’ keep the greenbacks from cuttin’ off his air. That an’ shoot government agents.
“That was how Mose’s reputation really got goin’. A couple a government fellas come sniffin’ an’ they caught the tail end a some whispers about Mose, an’ they followed them whispers up into the hills, an’ that was all anybody ever heard of ’em. A couple other fellas come lookin’ for the first two, an’ they went up in the hills, an’ didn’t nobody see them no more, neither. Then four of ’em come, an’ two of ’em went up in the hills, an’ the other two waited in town. The two that went
up never come down, an’ the two that stayed in town disappeared too; didn’t pay no hotel bill, didn’t take no bags. Jest went. After that, didn’t no more come. Now, lotta things coulda happened to them government fellas, but people bein’ what they is, they’d a lot rather figure there was eight government men buried in the woods than anything else. I would maself.
“But anyways, whenever anybody said ‘Moses Washington’ you thought right away about dead-eye shootin’ an’ moonshine an’ money. You sure as hell didn’t think about bib overhauls an’ no shirt an’ hair with Spanish needle stickin’ out an’ no damn shoes, which was what Mose was wearin’, an’ a old gunnysack, which is what he was carryin’. An’ you sure didn’t think about Hawley’s back room, which was where he showed up, I s’pose on accounta when folks heard about one man doin’ all that, didn’t nobody think he was gonna turn out to be colored. I know I didn’t.
“It didn’t bother nobody that he was a stranger; there was always a lot a strange colored folks runnin’ around in the summer. White folks’d come to stay out to the Springs or Chalybeate, to take the water cure—how them damn fools could figure splashin’ around in a bunch a cold water that didn’t even taste good was a cure for somethin’ I’ll be damn if I know—an’ they’d bring a maid an’ a man—that’s what they’d call it, though from my experience, them fellas wasn’t close to bein’ men an’ them gals sure wasn’t maids; if they was when they got here, they sure as hell wasn’t when they left—to dress the ladies an’ tend the horses an’ all that. We’d get some colored ones up to Hawley’s, but they was generally too foxy to get clean plucked. But we didn’t figure Mose for one a them; not the way he was lookin’. So what we figured was, he was one a them boys useta come in from down South to work on some white man’s farm. The white folks around here wasn’t fools, an’ they knowed they could get away with payin’ them fellas damn near nothin’, so there was always a few around. Sooner or later they’d end up in town with a little bit a money in their pockets, an’ sooner or later they’d end up on the Hill, since that was about the only place for a colored man to go, an’ if it was Saturday, they generally ended up in Hawley’s back room gettin’ plucked cleanern a pullet. So we took one look at Mose an’ figured here was one a them hayseeds, so dumb he didn’t know to comb his hair. Only question was, did he have any money?
“So we all waited. Fellas that was playin’ kept on, didn’t even look up at him, although I swear I seen Josh’s mouth water. Josh had been winnin’ but he quit; all the usual tough stuff—an’ them boys could get tough over cards—went right out the window. They didn’t even bluff; soon as them boys smelled easy meat they got polite as a colored Methodist at a white man’s prayer meetin’. Rest of us jest nodded to Mose polite like an’ kept on watchin’ the game.
“Mose, he seen how nice an’ clean they was playin’, an’ he decided he was gonna set down an’ clean up, so he steps up an’ says maybe he’d set in for a hand or two, if that was all right with the gentlemen that was playin’. That’s just the way he said it too, gentlemen, an’ if anybody had a notion that Mose was from around here, that cleaned it out: that bunch a boys was noted as the sneakiest rascals north a the County Jail—an’ wouldn’t anybody that knowed ’em called ’em gentlemen.
“Course, they couldn’t jest leave the man set down; he mighta cottoned on too quick. So Josh, he looks Mose up an’ down, an’ he says, ‘Well, sir, I don’t know. Me an’ the boys, we been playin’ together for a long time, an’ we got ourselves a real nice friendly game.’ Mose says he didn’t mean to be bustin’ in or nothin’, but he was jest as friendly as anybody. Well, they hemmed an’ hawed around for a while an’ finely they said he could set down, but he had to understand there wasn’t no dirty talk allowed. Mose said he didn’t never talk dirty. They said if he had a pistol, he’d have to leave it with Old Man Hawley. Mose said he didn’t have no pistol. So they said did he have a knife. Mose says yes, he did have an old jackknife. ‘No knives,’ Josh says, an’ they made Mose give his jackknife to Hawley, which had to be the funniest damn thing, since hadn’t none a them fellas gone nowheres without a knife, ’cept jail, since Hector was a pup. An’ they wasn’t no jackknives, neither. Funny thing was, with them bein’ so cagey ’bout gettin’ his fangs pulled, they didn’t think maybe he had a shotgun down in that there gunnysack. Leastways, they didn’t think it then.
“Anyways, they fixed him up with a chair to sit on an’ a tin can to spit in an’ a tin cup to drink from, an’ they ast him did he want a little snort. Which he took. An’ every one a them rapscallions breathed a whole lot easier when he did, ’cause they was countin’ on picklin’ him on the way to pluckin’ him, so’s to have him so scratchy by the time they was through he wouldn’t be able to do nothin’ about it. So they waited till he’d drunk it down an’ they poured him some more, an’ then they dealt out the cards an’ proceeded to lose.
“Most a the time them boys could make cards do anything. You’d tell ’em to take a pack an’ make the ace a spades jump out an’ sing ‘The Battle Hymn a the Republic’ an’ he’d jest ast you did you want it on the long edge or the short edge, an’ how many times through did you want it sung? Usually the fella that won was jest the best cheater. I recall one time Charlie DeCharmes was fixin’ to knife Josh on accounta he claimed Josh was cheatin’, an’ everybody was tryin’ to stop him by sayin’ how did he know Josh was cheatin’, an’ Charlie says, ‘The sonofabitch had to be cheatin’ ’cause he’s showin’ four of a kind an’ I know I didn’t deal him nothin’ but two pair.’ But right now they was losin’. Mose was rakin’ in the money. I mean rakin’ it in. Every time he won he’d let out a yell like an Indian an’ you could see clear back to his tonsils an’ smell the manure on his breath. Only time he didn’t win was when he had the deal. An’ he looked so happy, I tell you, I quit bein’ mad at that gal for usin’ up all my money an’ keepin’ me from gettin’ in on the pluckin’, an’ I started feelin’ sorry for him. They waited till he had hisself a goodly pile an’ that there tin cup had been filled an’ emptied so damn many times it was startin’ to wear thin an’ then, little by little, they started takin’ his money away.
“It was beautiful the way they done it. There was four of ’em playin’ ’sides Mose. When it started out, he was winnin’ four hands outa five, an’ then it cut back so he was winnin’ three out a five, but the two he was losin’ was big ones, an’ he was definitely comin’ up on the short end. On top a everything, he played the dumbest poker I ever seen. He’d bet big when he had a good hand, an’ he wouldn’t even try to bluff; it was like he was payin’ to lose. After about two hours they had all the money back that they’d lost to him, an’ then Josh goes into his act.
“ ‘Brothers,’ he says, ‘it appears to me that we’re all jest about even, an’ maybe this here is a nice friendly time to call this nice friendly game over. Ain’t nobody won moren he oughta, an’ ain’t nobody lost moren he can afford. I suggest we all head home.’ Which was pure horse manure, ’cause it wasn’t but maybe midnight an’ that back room didn’t hardly come awake ’fore then. But Josh, he acted like he meant it, an’ he started pickin’ up his money.
“Mose looks around an’ he says, ‘Well, gentlemen, I wanna thank y’all for a fine evenin’, but to tell you the honest truth, it do seem a little short. Now, if you folks wants to go on home, why, good night to you; but if there’s one or two that wants to stay an’ play a few more hands, I’d be pleased to keep ’em company.’ So they hemmed an’ they hawed awhile, an’ when the dust had done settled every damn one a them was stayin’. Mose says he appreciates ’em all stayin’ jest to keep a stranger company, an’ says he wants to offer ’em some a his hospitality, which, he says, was home-grown but tasty, an’ he reaches down to his gunnysack an’ hauls out a jug an’ pours ’em all a goodly-sized toot, an’ they all drinks together, an’ he fills the cups up again, an’ they starts in to play.
“Well, I’d seen it happen many a time, an’ moren oncet
I was in the middle of it myself, but I got to swear it was mighty impressin’ the way they took that man’s money away. They sucked it up like babies on boobies. Matter a fact, it seemed to me that they was cleanin’ him out too fast, makin’ it too plain, you know. So I tried to catch Josh’s eye, give him a look to make him ease off a bit. But then I seen it wasn’t none a his doin’; Mose was playin’ so bad they didn’t have to cheat—’cept maybe a little here an’ there. The pile a money that had started out in front a Mose jest drained away like water outen a busted dam, but he kept on smilin’ an’ bettin’ like a Goddamn fool. He was tryin’ to fill straights, or draw flushes, or some damn thing, all the time. Well, anyways, in a hour or so it was all gone.
“Well, Josh, he calls a halt, says he needs some air, an’ he gets up an’ goes out onto the porch, an’ then he give me the eye when he goes past, so I waited a spell an’ then I followed him on out there. He looks at me an’ he says, ‘Jack, somethin’ stinks like a dead catfish on a pile a cow poop on a summer day. I ain’t never seen nobody lose money like that an’ grin about it.’ Well, I said I could see his point, but I didn’t see no way it could be anything ’cept a crazy man losin’ money, which they do all the time; there wasn’t nothin’ tricky happenin’ I could see. So we had a chaw an’ went on back inside.
“Hadn’t nothin’ changed in there. Mose was still settin’ grinnin’ away an’ passin’ his jug around. Since they wasn’t playin’ I got me a snort of it, an’ I mean to tell you, it was the sweetest taste I’d ever had. I took another swalla an’ rolled it around in ma mouth, tastin’ it real good, an’ right then was when I caught on. Only I didn’t really catch on. Sometimes, you know, Johnny, you’ll get yourself an idea way back in the back a your head an’ it’s like you’re lightin’ up a coal fire; maybe there’s a blaze when you set fire to the kindlin’, but that dies, an’ the fire jest sets in there, an’ it’s all black, an’ you might even think the fire’s done gone out, but when you reach in there with the poker an’ lift up a chunk a the coal the name jumps right out at you an’ gives your whiskers a good singein’. That’s the way it was. The idea sprung up, but I didn’t even notice it, hardly. I jest started feelin’ mighty uneasy.
Chaneysville Incident Page 7