All God's Dangers (46 page)

“How do you do, Mr. Watson, Mr. Grace.”

Said, “Well, you come here to sign your papers, didn't you?”

I said, “Yes sirs, that's why I'm here.”

Pushed it through the window for me to sign. My wife was standin right there and I just handed it to her. That's when I found out the devil was in the concern; that kept crossin my mind all the time and that kept me, to a great extent, from signin any notes at all with Watson.

Hannah turned away, stepped off a step or two, whipped that paper right over in a jiffy. She come back with it and touched me on my arm. I listened to her. She said, “Darlin, that paper covers everything you got: your mules, wagon, all your tools and your cows and hogs and everything you got's on that paper.”

Good God, when she told me that I hollered. I just pushed the paper back to em through the bars. I said, “I won't sign that paper, noway under the sun it could be fixed like it is.”

I'd expected to come there that night and sign papers on the land—Watson knowed what I had—not reach out and take my mules, my wagon, my hogs, my cows, on that paper. And if I'd a signed it like they was preparin me to do, I could have lost it all. Just be late payin on the land and they would take everything I had. I had sense enough through my wife to see what they was tryin to do to me. Wooooooooo, I meant to buck it.

I said, “Aint that land sufficient to stand for itself and not none of my personal property on it? I can't carry it nowhere.”

Tried to saddle everything I had. Right there I burst like a butterbean in the sun. I wouldn't sign that note for Jesus Christ. I just stuck that paper back through them bars—I knowed the type of him. I felt a fire in my heart; told my wife, “Let's go.”

If I couldn't do better I was goin to move away from there. Soon as I told my wife, “Let's go,” and got nearly to the door, “Come back, come back, Nate, we can change the paper; come back, come back, we can change it.”

I just say now I was a fool—I went back. They changed that paper to suit me and I signed it. It just spoke for the land then. So I signed to buy the place from Mr. Watson and if I couldn't make the payments all they could do was take it back.

Watson was a man, he was fixin a mortgage on my stuff without askin me any odds about it, just fixin it like he wanted. All I had to do, walk up and sign it. I kicked like a mule kickin a stable door down, I didn't hide, I kicked it bald-headed, right before him and the banker, CD Grace, there in the bank. Broke that thing up, too. But Watson continued to dig at me.

I was aimin to live through this world, till death, without lettin a man handicap me that way, and much as I had around,
it
paid for, let a man come up and handicap me with a little old rocky-assed rough place, take a mortgage on everything I had for the land when I sensibly knowed that the land was able to stand for itself—weren't nothin but a rock pile nohow; then wanted to take advantage of my ignorance—he thought I was ignorant to that, but he soon found out at the pop of a finger, I weren't ignorant to
that.
Right then I had over a thousand dollars' worth of property: mules, hogs, cows, wagons, two automobiles—close to two thousand dollars' worth. Tryin to ignore me and discount me enough to fix a mortgage on all that just for a rock pile.

So they changed the paper. The new paper just covered the land and nothin else I had. But the devil is busy; you may get him off his track but he's goin to get where he wants to go some other way. That night they had to change the paper to get me to sign, but it wasn't the last time they tried to tie me up. I was full aware to what they was aimin to do.

I was dealin with the bank in Apafalya then, but this banker seemed to want to turn me loose and let his friend Watson disable me. When I failed to be geehawsed in that note signin business, I decided they would just try to put me over in Watson's hands another way. But they couldn't do it. I lingered along and made good crops for several years, and I noticed every time I'd go to the bank Watson was there. And he didn't have all that much business at the bank.

I wanted to keep dealin with the bank because there you draw the money for your supplies and when you paid that back and the interest on it, you was clear and loose. Better to deal with the bank, better by a hundred percent; you knowed what you was gettin in the first place. You deal with one of these men out here in the
country or with a moneyed man in town somewhere, other than the bank, you burnt up. So, after the papers was fixed up on that old place, I went right back to the bank the next year—Mr. Grace turned me down. He turned me down. I didn't like that. I said, “Well, Mr. Grace—”

He said, “You're partners in business now with Mr. Watson. I'll just let you and him run it, him and you; you don't need the bank's help.”

I said, way down in me, ‘No, I won't deal with Watson.' And in kind words I asked Mr. Grace to recognize me and let me deal on with him. I knowed that from what I made on my cotton I could pay Mr. Watson on that land right along. Mr. Grace kicked at helpin me but I begged him in these words. I said, “Mr. Grace, I been dealin with you and I've always paid you and I knowed what I was payin when I paid it. I'd just feel at a loss if you turn me loose and don't help me to what I need to be helped. If I can't get it out of you it leaves me lost. Please, sir, carry me on.”

He carried me on one year. That fall, as usual, I walked in the bank one day to pay Mr. Grace and I paid him square and fair to the last penny the note called for. Mr. Watson was standin there lookin on at the transaction. I thought that was so audacious. Mr. Grace went to get my note—he got the note to give me, Mr. Watson standin right there. “Give me that. Give me that.”

Mr. Grace looked at me and looked at Mr. Watson—stood there on a study like before he gived it to ary one of us. Mr. Watson continued, said, “Give it to me.”

Ooooooooo, I felt like fallin out, but I couldn't help myself. I knowed though, definitely, he had no more business with that note than he had with a hog in his pocket. God knows if it didn't give me the blues. I was standin there waitin on my note; Mr. Grace was slow to give it to me. He looked at Mr. Watson and looked at me. After a while he just hauled off and handed it to Mr. Watson. I thought that was a helluva come-off. The note I just paid the bank, paid Mr. Grace, and he handed it to Mr. Watson. O, it hurt me so bad—the note weren't any good to the man, he couldn't collect a dime on it. I didn't owe nothin on the note and I didn't owe
him
nothin. What good was it to him? That showed me what he wanted from me—his plans was naked as a baby. I didn't need no more indication about it.

M
Y
daddy died while I was livin on the Pollard place. Now I think it was really about '28 when he died because when I bought that '26 Ford I hauled him around right smart for several years; in fact, every time he said he wanted to go to the doctor I'd go and carry him.

I don't know his troubles but he was a man that had married four times. His first wife was Matilda Todd, so said, told me about it many a time, old man Sam Todd's daughter. Him and her had one chap, and the boy died. She was one of these high-strung women, the way he told it, and I reckon he told some truth about it. She was a hot-shot, Matilda Todd. Her and him had one child and that child died before they thoroughly separated. Then he jumped up and married my mother; her name was Liza Culver. She died—I was big enough to know the month and the year when my dear mother died—she died just before I was nine years old. So then he married Maggie Reed, which was my first wife's auntie. Her and old man Waldo Ramsey had the same mother. Well, when she died I was married at that time, had several children myself. And when I married I left from anywhere around the settlement where my daddy lived. Went on away from there and stayed away. I picked up my shotgun—I had a single barrel breech-loader—and—there aint no use to talk about the clothes, I didn't have no fittin clothes; just did have some worse-fit clothes to stand up and be married in.

So, my daddy lingered along, I was married and had several children. Then he married again. The old man was gettin mighty feeble then. I talked to him about it. He got to runnin around with this last woman he married—he had a old horse and buggy; he'd lost all his property at that time but for a old horse and buggy. He was rarin around to marry, I knew he was, but he was too old to be marryin that woman, and I told him about it.

He come to my house one Sunday mornin early and spent part of the day. And we went in the house, sat down, got to talkin, and I seed a pistol in his pocket. I said, “Papa, what are you doin totin that thing?”

“I keeps it for protection, son.”

But, you know, in his way of transactin, he was his worst enemy. Well, I talked it off with him, told him I didn't see no cause
for him to carry his pistol up and down the road on his buggy with him—he might knock it and shoot hisself, old as he was. So, my little boys done went and fed his horse and he set there a while and et dinner with us that Sunday; then he set there awhile in the evenin before he left. And I think to the best of my knowledge when I seen my daddy again he done married that woman. And so when he got ready to leave, Calvin and Davey went and caught his horse out and hitched him up. My daddy crawled in the buggy and the old horse went backin on off.

So, I was haulin lumber for the Graham-Pike Lumber Company and I met him on the road one day. I'd been to the planin mill in Apafalya with a load of lumber and I was on the route back out of town. And good God, I met my daddy goin to town.

He said, “Well—”

I was hotheaded then about the situation. I knowed he was too old to marry this woman he'd been runnin around with. And he met me, stopped for a talk.

“Well, son, I got you another mama.”

I looked at him, said, “You aint got me no other mama, Papa. You aint got me no other mama. You had me a stepmother and she's gone. That's the last. I won't recognize no more.”

This woman he married was a pretty rough woman. I knowed it, knowed it from a chap up. Her name was Bonnie Tubbs. She'd been married about twice before herself. Didn't have a child in the world. Lonnie Tubbs was her first husband and another fellow, I knowed him too, had been her husband. And she quit him and after she quit him he died. Then my daddy went and married her. I knowed he was marryin a rough cat. And that was his last marriage. Well, lingered along and she threatened to quit him—she was a rough woman from the start, been used to runnin over men. My daddy met his match when he married Bonnie Tubbs. And some sort of disagreement come up between em—I never did trace it up. I knew she weren't goin to stay with him. So she got hotheaded, moved out and left him. Then he jumped up and moved—

I was right at grown when my daddy commenced a buyin the place he moved away
from.
After I had growed to the years of maturity, I felt that I had to look out for myself and I was really scufflin to get away from my daddy. I couldn't afford to pay too much attention to his affairs then. I was just about my own man
right at the time my daddy bought a place—time for me to go. Bought that place from Mr. Charley Todd, son of old man Clem Todd, who owned a territory of land, several hundred acres, in his lifetime. Old man Clem Todd was a one-legged man. He would drive his horse and tote his crutches across the front of his saddle. I knowed him well. Heap of times he'd come up to my daddy's house—he rode a old dark red-colored horse; never did keep his horse fat but he kept him in livin order. He'd ride that horse to my daddy's house, seein after the business between my daddy and himself. And he had funny eyes; he'd chew his tobacco, roll his eyes, and look at my daddy, talk to him. He'd be sittin on his horse talkin to my daddy.

“Hayes, so-and-so-and-so-and-so.”

I was a little old boy, standin around—I was big enough, my daddy had me to work after I got big enough to work and I never gived him no trouble bout workin. My daddy kept me in the field just as regular as he wanted to. Sometimes my daddy would be out in the woods huntin when Mr. Clem Todd would ride up there.

“Where's Hayes?”

He knowed. He knowed my daddy was a hunter.

After old man Clem died, Charley Todd, his son—there was three of them boys: Mr. Billy Todd was the oldest one, he was married, he married a Bond lady; and Mr. Meek Todd, the second son, I don't know who he married; and Charley Todd was the baby son, baby child of the family. And this Charley Todd, after the death of his daddy, he bought this small place for my daddy and my daddy was supposed to pay him for it. My daddy bought that place through Mr. Charley Todd; it was a Wheeler place, right there joinin the Todd plantation, and Mr. Charley Todd had become guardzine over it some way. I don't know all the transactions because I stepped out, but my daddy had a mess of children there livin with him that he could put to work to pay for the place. And my daddy just kept hashin along, scrubbin along some sort of way. But to go down to truthful facts about it, I don't think my daddy ever paid Mr. Charley Todd in full; but he paid on it like the devil and finally he couldn't pay no more and Mr. Charley Todd took it back. My daddy lost TJ's mother at that period of time when he was buyin that place. And he jumped up—he was a hot-tailed old man; he was the daddy of many a chap, inside his married life and outside—and he married Bonnie Tubbs. And he got distracted
on that woman and he let his business slide. The next news I heard, that little place was fully in Mr. Charley Todd's hands.