All God's Dangers (71 page)

I said, “Yes, I'll buy her.”

He said, “Bein it's you, Papa, you can have her for eighty dollars.”

I said, “No I can't, neither. I aint goin to buy her for no eighty dollars.”

He said, “Well, you can have her for that.”

I said, “You know what that mule cost. You worked her one year. And I done worked her one year, free of charge. Now you want me to take her and pay you eighty dollars for her, you willin to let me. I can't do that; that's beatin you too much, boy, by your own figures. I'll buy your mule but not at that price. One hundred dollars is as little as I'll pay you. I know what you paid—me and Vernon went with you when you bought her from Mr. Fred Heap, and she's a nice mule.”

She was fat when I got her, kept her fat the year I used her, and when he went to sell her to me he wanted eighty dollars!

I said, “You workin at Calusa and you say you aint goin to farm no more. If you ever farm, by your words to me, it'll be more than you aimin to do. I'll give you a cash hundred dollars for that mule and nothin less.”

He said, “No, Papa, you aint got to give me that much.”

I said, “Well, you fixin to marry and you need money to start off with. Tell you what I'll do. You want your money now?”

Said, “No, I don't want it now, but just before I marry I'll want it.”

I said, “Well, you just go ahead and see me later. When you ready the money will be here.”

He went on to Calusa and kept a workin, kept a workin, and the money was layin there, I had it in the house. And he come in one night, home—next mornin he'd have to go back to his job. I said, “Well, boy, let me tell you somethin. Business is business. If I'm goin to buy that mule from you I'm goin to pay you tonight and
then let you do what you please with the money and I'll take the mule over in full; she'll be mine.”

I runned my hand in my pocket and pulled out my pocketbook, gived him a cash hundred dollars. That cut him clean loose, no papers and nothin more needed on it. He aint never planted a crop since.

R
ACHEL
was livin with Ralph Jenks just about three quarters of a mile west of my place on land that his daddy had gived him when he married her. And he didn't have no care and respect a bit more than a dog for that girl. He just had sense enough to want to marry her and that was all, that was all. The tricks that he done after becomin a husband to my daughter is too bad to discuss. He knowed how to get children by her but that was the biggest thing he seemed to know. He kept up so much devilment, acted sorry in every dealin he was supposed to put over as a man's duty—he was nothin special as a farmer, neither. What farmin he done, he'd lay the plan, my daughter and her children after they got big enough to work had to do the work. Ralph Jenks laid up around Calusa, called hisself workin. And when he drawed his checks, other women enjoyed his labor better than my daughter did.

He was the worst fellow that ever been born, he was terrible. When I come home he was ill to Rachel. And she was my child, she was a good girl but she'd just take anything off of Ralph Jenks—that was his name. But they had some very fine children, nothin but boys: her and Ralph was the mother and father of six boys—there's two in Boston, one in Florida, two in Atlanta, and the one in Birmingham is the sixth boy.

So, when I come home, the first thing I knowed, he liked to knock out one of her eyes—didn't knock it clean out but he gived her a black eye. And I went to see about it. Thomas Galloway, fellow that married my second daughter, Mattie Jane, he come to my house one night and I told him, after I'd heard the news about Ralph beatin my daughter, I said, “Thomas, I want you to carry me over to Ralph Jenks.”

And Thomas had heard about it too. He generally kept one of these big two-ton trucks and he come over on that. Well, he was right down with me. And went up by Vernon's and he come on the
truck with us. And they was livin on the left side of the road goin back past my house, up on a rise. It's all growed up now—that's where Ralph was livin with Rachel, had her there with him as a wife. And we was goin over there to see about the trouble between em.

Got there that night and we all set down there in the house. Rachel set down there too amongst her little boys. Ralph was sittin right over on the side of the fireplace and Vernon and Thomas was sittin back above Ralph, closer to the door, and I was sittin right along the other side of the fireplace right where I could look into Ralph's face. Rachel was sittin close to Vernon, her own dear brother, but more toward the center of the fireplace.

I was busy, I weren't sayin a word; I was busy watchin everybody's moves and lookin at her, lookin at Rachel right in the face, and lookin at Ralph right in the face. And that's what I went over there for—I was watchin points and everything. I'd heard he done black-eyed her and I looked at her good. She seemed to want to keep her head turned to the left to keep me from seein her. That put her directly in the sight of Vernon and Thomas. And every chance I could get I was lookin at her face. Every chance she could get she'd flick her head around, but every time she turned her head back I seed that one of her eyes was all but looked like knocked out. I just raised up mad as the devil—accordin to the way I heard he was treatin, livin with her, he was just makin a dog of her and he'd eventually killed her. I just pulled off and said, “Sister—” called her “Sister,” oldest girl in the family—“Sister, what's the matter with your eye? What's the matter with your eye?”

She said, “That's where Ralph—” now this was the first fracas that I heard of after I come out of prison. She said, “That's where Ralph hit me, Papa.”

Good God almighty, when I asked her that question, what did I ask her for? That's what I was after. I got up and told him, “Ralph, what in the world was you studyin at, knockin my child's eye out near bout that way? If it aint out. You just makin a dog of her.”

Right then Vernon jumped up and fastened him. Them little old boys commenced a runnin around, “Papa, don't hit him, don't hit him”—them boys called me “Papa”—“Don't hit him, Papa.”

I thinked to myself, ‘O, I aint goin to just hit him, if necessary I'm goin to beat the hell out of him.'

Vernon jumped up that quick and collared him. Ralph had a
man in his bosom then when Vernon collared him. I standin there lookin at him. Well, I didn't want to slaughter him, I didn't want the boys to beat him up in front of his children. But if it hadn't been for Thomas Galloway grabbin Vernon, Vernon woulda beat the shit out of him right there, in his own house. He'd a cleaned him up. Well, it all got smothered down—Thomas Galloway grabbed Vernon; he weren't quite as heavy as Vernon, he weren't that heavy, but he was big enough to handle him pretty good. He grabbed Vernon and pulled him loose, got em separated. Ralph weren't goin to do nothin but get his face scuttled, foolin with Vernon. I didn't hit a lick, but I urged it on far as it went, I did. I aint goin to tell a lie. I knowed if I'd a tackled Ralph and couldn't handle him, Vernon weren't goin to let him hurt me. Vernon was the strongest man there and when he grabbed Ralph, that was a
man
grabbed him, too. Ralph was lighter than Vernon but he was pretty heavy hisself, in reason. And Thomas pulled Ralph on out of the house. He managed to persuade Vernon and all, and held to him, got him out of there. Ralph didn't have a possible chance to do nothin.

So, rocked along, rocked along, and he didn't quit his devilment. Next news I heard—he kept a old piece of car around there all the time, and he took Rachel on that old car one night and carried her down the road, come out here to the crossroads—been a road through there for the longest, but for the last lately they asphalted it—and he turned off and went on down there by Newcastle, then turned to the left and hit another road goin over to where Will Tuttle lives now. And he got down there in them swamps and he got him off—
she
said—he got him off a small limb and he beat her down, down there in the dark on the road. Well, when she got able, she come up to my house, told me about it and all. And he got away with that because she begged me—

Next time he cranked his old car up and went off—and he got a sister lives in Tuskegee; went off down there and Rachel went with him. And when they left Tuskegee that evenin, in place of comin back toward home, he come on out from Tuskegee on the Apafalya road and he hit Apafalya—and durin the comin through there from Tuskegee to Apafalya he bought him—she said, he got it—he bought him a pint of whiskey, full pint of whiskey. Then he hit the road through Apafalya and come out this side of town where the road turns and goes on out by Elam Church, went by Elam Church and carried her on off over there on what they call the old
Pine place, just a desert where there weren't no buildins or nothin but a big scope of woods. And he drove out—woods on both sides of the road and on one side was Elam Church, church I was born and raised up goin to, old home church; drove on through there by Elam until he hit them big woods between Elam and Sitimachas Creek. And he drove over in there and stopped on one side of the road or the other. Made her pull off everything she had on but her underwear, and he beat her down over there. Again! Beat her down. And when he went to crank his old car—Lord, if I'd a been there I don't expect I'd a quit shootin until I'd emptied every bullet out of my pistol, if I'd a just walked down on him—well, when he beat her up all he wanted to and he got ready to crank his old car up and come out, old car wouldn't run, wouldn't crank and run for him. He had to come on back out of them big woods over there between Sitimachas and Elam Church, and had to come out
walkin
, and her with him, beat up, beat up. And they runned up into a fellow by the name of Ambrose Lane. I knowed old man Frank Lane and all of his boys well. And Ambrose Lane was married to a woman named Heather Reeve, old man Madison Reeve's daughter. So Ambrose took em on his car and he noticed that Rachel was all beat up, weren't havin nothin to say, just like a dog, humble as a dog. Ambrose brought em home and when they got there, Ralph lingered around out back and Rachel took off for my house. And she was beat up so until Hannah and Mattie Jane, who was livin up there at that time in the house with me and her mother, they got around Rachel and got her to lay down and they greased her body all over practically. And she begged em, Rachel begged em—I was out and gone—to not tell Papa nothin about it and I didn't know about it for a while.

Well, next time he beat her up—and every time he'd beat her up that way, dog her, and just beat her eyes out nearly, when she'd get sort of straightened up in a few days, she'd go back to him. Well, that embarrassed Vernon. He decided if she was just goin to keep runnin back to Ralph, and he just goin to kill her, he weren't goin to have anything to do with it. But I hung in there; I'd a killed somebody or been killed before I'd a stood it.

So, the last time he beat her up, we heard about that. And one Sunday, me and Hannah come down there, right where Rachel's livin now, in the same house, only that Garvan, my baby boy, has overhauled that house and made it livable. But it was just a old
weatherboarded shack at the time. And also the road people moved it back from where it stood when they asphalted the road. So, we come down there one Sunday—we was on our way to see one of the Hildreth ladies who was doin poorly; she was subject to be poorly and now she's dead and been dead a year and a half. We was on route to see her and we stopped at Ralph and Rachel's. She settin there all beat up—he was there too. Wouldn't nobody mention nothin. Rachel'd got to where she weren't goin to tell me nothin about it.

And before that was over, the next day, on Monday, the officers got on his tail. And it was colored folks, I believe, that called em out. And he discovered that they was comin for him and he commenced a dodgin around the settlement, keepin out of their sight. Had some friends protectin him, hidin him. He kept runnin and he outsmarted them officers, he kept hid and squandered. And at the wind-up of it, of him gettin away from here, up there at Vernon's I runned into them officers travelin backwards and forwards, huntin him. I told em all that I knowed at the time and I reckon they already knowed what I told em. The white people of the community knowed what he was doin, too—they told me they couldn't locate him nowhere. And we'd decided he'd just about slipped out and gone. I told em, “Well, Mr. Officers, I don't know where he's at. But if ever I locate him, if he's around me and I locate him, I'll warn you all.”

And after he sloped off—he been back here two or three times and he went there to see her one time and he got messin around with her and she hit him, Rachel hit him in the face. And he aint been back since. He stays up in Michigan country today, Detroit, Michigan. So, if ever I'd a located him, been nobody between us, I'd a put him straddle-legged.

M
ATTIE
J
ANE
was livin up the road with Thomas Galloway. Now Thomas loved Mattie Jane and he proved it, and he didn't beat her and knock her up. They married while I was in the penitentiary. And Mattie Jane, she was a girl like this: she'd never be so flip—of course, none of my children weren't flip, and she was steady and agreeable but she weren't too strong. And her and Thomas had two chaps, a girl—she stays in Brooklyn, New York—and a boy named Thomas, after his daddy.

Tell the truth, Thomas loved whiskey—the daddy. And accordin
to all reports, he had two brothers loved whiskey too. All of em was old man Galloway's children. Old man Galloway married one of the Byrd girls that owned the place they lived on. All the Byrds is dead, practically, and the place has fell to some of the grand-heirs. Well, Fourth of July, 1947, Thomas come to me in the field where I was layin by a patch of corn. Fourth of July come on a Friday that year—so he come to me and before I knowed anything he was right at me. He'd been plowin right above me on the Byrd place and he'd let me have the use of some land over there just below his field and I was over there layin by some corn. We talked awhile, passin time—and Saturday mornin, he come right back down there where I was. I hadn't quite got done on the Fourth, so Saturday mornin I was right there again, plowin, runnin out corn rows. And I looked around, there was Thomas. And Thomas was mighty accommodatin to me. He said, “Pa Nate—” that's what he called me—“Pa Nate, you seem to be layin by your corn. How bout—I got some scrapes up there larger than yours—”