Black Water (12 page)

Paul David taught him how to get on a horse by first tyin’ it to a fence rail, shinnyin’ up the fence post, and slidin’ onto the saddle. It didn’t matter his little legs weren’t anywhere near long enough to reach the stirrups. What did matter was, when he fell off, he led the horse back to the fence, shinnied up the splintery post, and got back on again. Slow to compliment and quick to discipline, Paul David was the opposite of Iva Jane. She believed Hub could be a man and still be kissed and hugged. And she did. Just not when Paul David was around.

There were two things Paul David really liked. The first was any kind of alcohol and the second was any kind of woman. If they were willin’, he was able. Iva Jane knew about it, but after countless arguments and broken promises, she’d quit caring. She’d given up on everthing but Hub.

Just because Paul David was handin’ out goodies to ever woman he found receptive didn’t mean he wasn’t still dishin’ it out at home, though. Iva Jane knew that ever time Paul David got lustful toward her, which was mostly when he was too drunk to ride the horse somers else he considered more exciting, she could come up pregnant, and she didn’t wanna bring another child into that house. But, as luck would have it, five years after Hub, she gave birth to a girl. Loretta Abigail, who everbody called Ret. Paul David was disappointed it hadn’t been another boy. The way he looked at it, Hub was his and Ret was Iva Jane’s.

There was one thing that Iva Jane hated even more than Paul David’s drinkin’ and runnin’ around. And that was...once he made up his mind about somethin’, he never went back. Depending on what the subject was, that could be a good thing. But if it was a bad thing, it was really bad. If Paul David started somethin’ or said somethin’ was or wasn’t gonna be, everbody else had to live with it.

When Hub was nine, he asked Paul David if he could have a dog. Paul David told him, all right, but nothin’ in life came without a price and a dog was a valuable thing. What was Hub willing to give in return? He told Hub to think about it a couple o’ days and see what he came up with. Hub told him he didn’t need to; he’d keep the woodpile stocked. Paul David told him he was already doin’ that. In fact, it was one o’ the things he’d been doin’ that kept a plate at the table for him. That idea pretty much squelched any other chore he was already doin’.

After two days and Hub hadn’t come up with anything, Paul David said he had somethin’. He’d let Hub have a puppy if Hub’d take care o’ the family’s killin’ and skinnin’ duties. That meant the rabbits, chickens, possums, fish, and whatever else was to be consumed. Too, the dog could have the guts. The chore woulda been a handy thing for Hub to do, but the real reason Paul David mentioned it was ‘cause he knew how bad Hub hated killin’ anything. Skinnin’ and cuttin ’em up was even worse. But Hub wanted a puppy. He gave in, and after a while, learned to handle the chore without throwin’ up ever time. The dog was all Hub’d hoped it would be. Buddy was his name and he was an ugly thing, a mixed-blood mutt of the first order, but he was fun and Hub loved him.

One Sunday afternoon, the family was sittin’ around, and Paul David asked Ret if she’d get him a cup o’ coffee. She was sittin’ in the middle o’ the floor playin’ with her dolly and told him “In a minute.” Iva Jane and Hub heard her, and both their hearts nearly stopped. The only time you told Paul David anything but “yes” was when you knew that was what he wanted to hear.

He told her again, and again she told him “In a minute.” That woulda been enough, but the second “in a minute” she sounded like she was a little put out havin’ to tell him twice.

Paul David pushed hisself out of his chair, yanked Ret off the floor by the arm, and headed for the front door. Ret was already squealin’ in terror. Paul David’s face was red, and his jaw was clamped down. On the way out the door, he told Hub he could follow, which meant he was supposed to follow. He told Iva Jane she could stay in the house, which meant she was supposed to stay in the house. Ret knew she’d made a real bad mistake, but it was too late. Paul David’d done it—made up his mind. He drug Ret to the henhouse, jerked her up short, and asked, “Which one’s yorn?”

Ret pointed out a little Banty hen, and Paul David turned to Hub, “Get it!” Then he dug his fingers into Ret’s shoulder hard enough to get a squeak. “I’ll show you what sassin’ me gets ya.”

As scared o’ Paul David as he was, Hub still took the chance. “Papa, please don’t.”

Paul David was shocked all to Hell. First, Iva Jane’s daughter told him “in a minute,” and now his own son was tellin’ him what to do. “She sassed me ‘n this family’s eatin’ that chicken t’night.”

Hub listened to his little sister’s howlin’ while he stepped into the coop and chased the hen down. Paul David wouldn’t let her go until Hub wrung its head off. The rest of it ran around the yard, slingin’ blood, until it bled out, and she had to watch. When it finally keeled over, still flutterin’ its wings, Paul David asked her, “Didju learn anything t’day?” She nodded while tears dripped off her chin. “T’marra, you come out here ‘n pick yerself out another chick, ‘n let’s us hope we don’t hafta do this again.” Paul David let her go and she ran for the house. Then he turned to Hub. “Go gitchur dawg.” Without waitin’ for a response, Paul David headed for the house.

Hub knew better. He shouldn’ta tried to talk Paul David out o’ killin’ the hen. He couldn’t imagine what he’d do if he tried to talk him out o’ this, so he went to look for the dog. He had him in his arms when Paul David stepped out the back door with his gun in his hand. A .45 revolver with a six-inch barrel. Hub’s lip curled in pain. Paul David waggled the barrel toward the dog.

“Set ‘im down.”

He did and Paul David didn’t give it a second before he shot the dog in the right flank. The blow swung it around a hundred and eighty. The poor thing yipped pitifully and tried to run, but it just turned in circles, draggin’ its bloody backside, convulsin’ in pain. Paul David walked to Hub and helt out the gun, butt first. “You’cn finish it ‘r let it bleed t’death. Whichever you think’s best. And when it’s dead, you dig a hole ‘n bury it. Then you fashion a cross for it, so that ever time you look out in th’yard, you see it.”

Hub took the gun. Paul David turned and walked toward the house. Hub’s first inclination was to thumb back the hammer and shoot Paul David in back o’ the head. He wondered if he knew it.

He did, but he didn’t think it would happen.

Hub cocked the pistol and put Buddy out of his misery.

Next day, Paul David brought home another puppy. Hub didn’t bother to name it, he just called it Puppy or Dog or Hey. Ever three or four months, Paul David would bring home another and then let Hub get attached to it. Then he’d drink up some cockamaymie excuse and shoot it or beat it with a stick bad enough to cripple it beyond repair and then Hub’d have to kill it.

Oledeux’s Meeting Hall was on the west side of town. It was big and sturdy and that was about all one could say for it. Years earlier it’d been a combination blacksmith and livery, but because of Mr. Ford’s noisy damn contraptions, the need for horseshoes and the critters that wore ’em got scarcer and scarcer. When the old boy who’d owned the place kicked the bucket, his son tried to take it over, failed, and abandoned the building to possums, pigeons, and rats.

It used to be just outside of town, but with time the town had spread out, and eventually the building found itself right in town. One day one of the city fathers brought up the idea of an official Meeting Hall. The bigger cities had one ‘n, God Dammit, Oledeux oughta have one, too. Well, instead of goin’ to the expense of puttin’ up somethin’ new, they junked the smithy’s forge, shoveled out the horsey stuff, bat and rat droppin’s, and slapped on two or three coats o’ whitewash, put up a raised platform they called a stage, hung a couple o’ criss-cross lines of eye-waterin’ two-hundred watters, and called it The Meeting Hall.

In the early evening of August seventeenth, nineteen hundred and twenty-four, the big rolling doors were open and the place was jumpin’. On the heavy plank stage were two farmers, an undertaker, and a pharmacist, known far and wide as The Band. It was comprised of a guitar, fiddle, banjo, and the little fella, the pharmacist, slappin’ the strings on a dog house, which was what they called the stand-up bass.

One o’ the more popular revelers was a raven-haired, drop-dead beauty named Ret Lusaw. Her eyes were wide-set, near black and sparkly, like the moon reflected in a pond. She had dimples you could push peas in. She wasn’t the ain’t-she-pretty, glamorous Hollywood or classic beauty, but the raw, nasty, Boy-howdy-I-sure- would-like-me-some-o’-that kind. She was nineteen years old, slim and flirty; slim on the slim, heavy on the flirty. The term ‘full of herself’ was made for Ret Lusaw. She sported one o’ them bobbed hairdos popular in the big cities. She’d seen a picture of it in a magazine and had the local hair girl cut it for her. She knew it’d create a lot o’ talk at the dance and that’s why she did it. Ret Lusaw liked bein’ talked about and looked at. The fat, dumpy, grumpy, and envious prune-faced old biddies sittin’ on their flabby asses on the benches linin’ the walls all agreed she looked like a boy with too big teeth and too little titties.

Watchin’ her, a body woulda sworn she was totally natural, but truth be told, everthing she did was highly choreographed. Ever wink, ever twirl, ever giggle—rehearsed to the hilt. Ret’s best friend had always been the swing-wing mirrors on the vanity in her bedroom. Ret Lusaw knew what she had and how to use it.

Two others enjoying the production was thirty-two-year-old George Komes, the kind that kept an invisible chip perched on his shoulder, currently nursin’ a whiskey and rubbin’ the end of a twiggy little stick over his teeth. Where babies had a banky with a frayed end they brushed under their nose or a dry-puke-flaked doll they drug about, George Komes had a little twig end he constantly rubbed over his teeth. He kept half a dozen spares in his shirt pocket.

At his side was his peanut-chompin’, dim-witted, thirty-year-old, almost bald-headed brother, Matthew, a good argument for mandatory, mental-hospital-steppin’-in-for-the-sake-of-mankind, sterilization. Where George’s teeth were dazzlingly white, Matthew’s were disgusting. Filthy, discolored, and the left top front was missing. He had the constant habit of playin’ with it with his tongue. It also gave everthing he said a
th
sound. “Tho what? Thath mine!” And, like almost everthing else about Matthew, it was annoying. ”Hey, George! Look at thith. Whadaya thay?”

George was big, well in excess of two hundred pounds, quiet and secretive. He was a fighter, too. Not a good one, but he didn’t have to be. He had two things goin’ for him. The first was an extremely high pain threshold. The second was perseverance. A deadly combination. He’d get hit time and time again but kept on comin’. He could take it until the other fella was completely worn out. Eventually, he’d get in that one punch and that was all she wrote. Once his opponent was on the ground, George finished him off. Then he’d finish him off some more.

Matthew wasn’t near as big as George, but what he lacked in size he more than made up for in stupidity. He was ever bit as scary as George, though, but in a different way. He was as conniving, too, but in a creepier way. George never smiled, and meant it. Matthew never stopped smilin’, and didn’t.

The Komes Brothers were a surly duo you didn’t wanna mess with, with or without alcohol, but more than that, they were sons of the witch, Lootie Komes.

Across the room, leanin’ up agin the wall, was Hub, Ret’s big, twenty-four-year-old, overly-protective brother, and he was watchin’ George and Matthew watch Ret. When the music was over, Hub caught sight o’ George knockin’ back the last of his drink, and Matthew grabbin’ two handsful o’ roasted peanuts and shovin ’em in his pocket. They gave one last lustful look at Ret and sauntered out the back door.

Oblivious to it all, a perspiration-glistening Ret glided toward a group o’ young men, part of her admiring throng. Before she got to ’em, though, one, a crimpy-haired red-head name of Nud Beaumont, took the initiative, leaped from the anxious herd, jumped to her side, and slipped his arm around her waist. Then he swung her around and headed for the dance floor, tellin’ everbody, “My turn!”

Roscoe Bowles, who figured it was his turn, followed ’em onto the floor and playfully but purposefully pulled Ret from Nud’s grasp. “Hell y’are, boy,” and he yelled to the band, “Fire up another’n, fellas!”

Nud grabbed her back. “Don’t be grabbin’ th’woman’s gonna marry me ‘n have my babies!”

“Who died ‘n left either o’ you rich?” Ret asked, lookin’ at ’em like they’s crazy.

Fakin’ heartbreak, Nud clutched his chest and whined, “Why Ret, is monetary riches so important when ya feel for one another th’way we do?”

“Yeah, I think so!” she said. “First, they ain’t enough money in all Looziana t’get my interest, ‘n two, I ain’t havin’ noooobody’s babies. ‘Specially yorn.”

Roscoe grabbed her around the waist and told Nud, “Yeah,” then to Ret, “Let’s go!”

“Uh uhhhhhh. That’s it,” she said, pushin’ away from Roscoe, “ya’ll’re gettin’ way too grabby. Ya’lla rurnt my night. I’m goin’ home.” They circled her, pleading with her not to go, and she told ’em, “Don’t beg, it ain’t manly.” Then she casually pulled a hankie out o’ LeRoy Ledbetter’s coat pocket with her fingertips. The boys stopped breathin’, watchin’ her run the hankie over her throat and the back of her neck. Then she drug it through the barely perceptible indentation separatin’ her small but tantalizing breastages and handed the moistened keepsake back to LeRoy. He was already thinkin’ ‘bout runnin’ home and puttin’ it in a Mason jar to keep the moisture from escapin’. She started away, and lookin’ over her shoulder, gave ’em the Poop-Poop-a-Doop, ain’t-I-just-the-cutest-little-thing-you-ever-seen, and gushed, “Good night, boys.” She exited, and once outside, took off her shoes, supremely satisfied with her performance.

She was half a mile from the Meeting Hall, walkin’ down the middle o’ the dirt road, straight into the face of a custard-yellow full moon hoverin’ just above the h’rizon, bright enough to read by, imagining what the boys were sayin’ about her, when…