Stories of Erskine Caldwell (87 page)

Once I thought I heard Martha Jean scream, but when I stopped and listened in the stinging sleet, I could not hear it again. After that I did not know whether it was she or whether it was only the wind that cried against the sharp corners of the buildings.

(First published in
Esquire
)

W
HEN THE SUN
went down, there were a heap of people just tramping up and down the dusty road without a care in the whole wide world. It was Saturday night and the cool of the evening was coming on, and that was enough to make a lot of folks happy. There were a few old logging mules plodding along in the dust with a worried look on their faces, but they had a right to look that way, because they had worked hard in the swamp all week and suppertime had come and gone, and they were still a long way from home.

It was the best time of the whole year for colored people, because it was so hot the whites didn’t stir around much, and a colored man could walk up and down in the big road as much as he wanted to. The women and girls were all dressed up in starched white dresses and bright silk hair bows, and the men had on their Sunday clothes.

All at once a hound dog somewhere down the road started barking his head off. You could look down that way, but you couldn’t see anything much, because the moon hadn’t come up yet. The boys stopped in the middle of the road and listened. The old dog just kept on barking. They didn’t say much, but they knew good and well those old hound dogs never took the trouble to get up and bark unless it was a stranger they smelled.

“Take care yourself, nigger!” the black boy in the yellow hat yelled. “Stand back and hold your breath, because if you don’t, you won’t never know what hit you.”

‘What you talking about, anyhow?” Jimson said.

“I just turned around and looked down the road,” Moses said, “and I saw a sight that’ll make your eyes pop out of your head.”

“What you see, nigger?” Jimson asked, trembling like a quiver bug. “You see something scary?”

“I seen Big Buck,” Moses said, his voice weak and thin. “I seen him more than once, too, because I looked back twice to make sure I saw right the first time.”

The two Negroes backed off the road into the ditch and pulled the bushes around them. They squatted there a while listening. Farther up the road people were laughing and singing, and talking loud. The old hound dog down the road was barking like he just wouldn’t give up.

“Ain’t no sense in Big Buck scaring the daylights out of folks the way he does,” Jimson said. “It’s a sin the way he keeps on doing it.”

“Big Buck don’t exactly aim to set out to scare folks,” Moses said. “People just naturally get the shakes when he comes anywhere around, that’s all. It ain’t Big Buck’s fault none. He’s as gentle as a baby.”

“Then how come you’re sitting here, squatting in these bushes, if he ain’t nothing to be scared of?”

Moses didn’t say anything. They pulled the bushes back a little and looked down the road. They couldn’t see much of Big Buck, because it had been dark ever since sundown; but they could hear his feet flapping in the dusty road as plain as cypress trees falling in the swamp in broad daylight.

“Maybe he once was gentle, when he was a baby himself,” Jimson said. “Maybe he is now, when he’s asleep in his bed. But last Saturday night down at the crossroads store he didn’t act like no baby I ever knew.”

“What did he do down there?” Moses asked.

“He said he liked the looks of the striped band on my new straw hat, and then he slapped me so hard on the back I hit the ground smack with my face. That’s how like a baby Big Buck is. I know, I do.”

“Quit your jabbering,” Moses whispered. “Here he comes!”

They pulled the bushes around them and squatted closer to the ground so they wouldn’t be seen. They took off their hats and ducked down as far as they could so their heads wouldn’t show. They were mighty glad it had got as dark as it was.

“Just look at that courting fool,” Jimson whispered. “Ain’t he the biggest sport you ever did see? He’s all dressed up in yellow shoes and red necktie ready to flash them colors on the first gal he sees. That courting fool can do courting where courting’s never been done before. Man alive, don’t I wish I was him! I’d get me a high yellow and —”

“Shut your big mouth, nigger!” Moses whispered, slamming Jimson in the ribs with his elbow. “He’ll jump us here in these bushes sure, if you don’t shut that big mouth of yours.”

Big Buck swung up the road like his mind was made up beforehand just exactly where he was headed. He was whistling as loud as a sawmill engine at Saturday afternoon quitting time, and throwing his head back and swinging his arms like he was sitting on top of the world. He was on his way to do some courting, it was plain to see.

The colored boys in the bushes shook until their bones rattled.

Then right square in front of the bushes Big Buck stopped and looked. There wasn’t no cat that could see better than him in the dark. His big black face only had to turn toward what he wanted to see, and there it was as plain as day in front of his eyes.

“You niggers is going to shake all the leaves right off them poor bushes,” Big Buck said, grinning until his teeth glistened like new tombstones in the moonlight. “Why you boys want to go and do that to them pretty little trees?”

He reached an arm across the ditch and caught hold of a woolly head. He pulled his arm back into the road.

“What’s your name, nigger?” he said.

“I’m Jimson, Mr. Big Buck,” the colored boy said. “Just Jimson’s my name.”

Big Buck reached his other arm into the bushes and caught hold of another woolly head. He yanked on it until Moses came hopping out into the road. He and Jimson stood there under Big Buck’s arms trembling worse than the leaves on the bushes had done.

“What’s your name, black boy?” Big Buck said.

“This is little Moses,” he answered.

“Little Moses how-many?”

“Just little Moses March.”

“That’s a funny name to have in August, boy,” Big Buck said, shaking him by the hair until Moses wished he’d never been born. “What you quivering like that for, boy? Ain’t nothing to be scared of if you change your name to August.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Big Buck,” Moses said. “I’ll change it. I’ll change my name just like you said. I’ll do just like you told me. I sure will, Mr. Big Buck.”

Big Buck turned Moses loose and laughed all over. He slapped Jimson on the back between the shoulders and, before Jimson knew what had happened, the ground rose up and smacked him square in the face. Big Buck looked down at Jimson and raised him to his feet by gripping a handful of woolly hair in his hand. He stood back and laughed some more.

“You peewees don’t have to act like you is scared out of your mind,” Big Buck said. “I ain’t going to hurt nobody. You boys is my friends. If it wasn’t so late, and if I wasn’t on my way to do some courting, I’d stop a while and shoot you some craps.”

He hitched up his pants and tightened up his necktie.

The boys couldn’t help admiring his bright yellow shoes and red necktie that looked like a red lantern hanging around his neck.

“Which-a-way is it to Singing Sal’s house from here?” he asked.

“Whoses house?” Jimson asked, his mouth hanging open. “Whoses house did you say?”

“I said Singing Sal’s,” Big Buck answered.

“You don’t mean Singing Sal, does you, Mr. Big Buck?” Moses asked. ‘You couldn’t mean her, because Singing Sal ain’t never took no courting. She’s mule-headed —”

“You heard me, peewee,” Big Buck said. “I say what I mean, and I mean Singing Sal. Which-a-way does she live from here?”

“Is you fixing to court her, sure enough?” Moses asked.

“That’s what I’m headed for,” he said, “and I’m in a big hurry to get there. You peewees come on and show me the way to get to where that gal lives.”

Jimson and Moses ran along beside him, trotting to keep up with the long strides. They went half a mile before anybody said anything.

Every time they met a knot of people in the road, the folks jumped into the ditches to let Big Buck pass. Big Buck didn’t weigh more than two hundred and fifty pounds, and he wasn’t much over seven feet tall, but it looked like he took up all the space there was in a road when he swung along it. The women and girls sort of giggled when he went by, but Big Buck didn’t turn his head at all. He kept straight up the big road like a hound on a live trail.

It wasn’t long before Jimson and Moses were puffing and blowing, and they didn’t know how much longer they could keep up with Big Buck if he didn’t stop soon and give them a chance to get their breath back. The folks in the road scattered like a covey of quail.

When they got to the fork in the road, Big Buck stopped and asked them which way to go.

“It’s over that way, across the creek,” Jimson said, breathing hard. “If you didn’t have no objection, I’d like to tag along behind you the rest of the way. Me and Moses was going over that way, anyway.”

“I don’t aim to waste no time knocking on wrong people’s doors,” Big Buck said, “and I want you boys to lead me straight to the place I want to go. Come on and don’t waste no more time standing here.”

They swung down the right-hand way. There weren’t many houses down there, and they didn’t lose any time. Big Buck was away out in front and the boys had a hard time keeping up.

They passed a couple of houses and went up the hill from the bridge over the creek. Big Buck started humming a little tune to himself. He didn’t mind climbing a hill any more than walking on level ground.

When they got to the top, Big Buck stopped and hitched up his pants. He wiped the dust off his new yellow shoes with his pants’ legs, and then he tightened up the red necktie until it almost choked him.

“That’s the place,” Jimson said, pointing.

“Then here’s where I light,” Big Buck said. “Here’s where I hang my hat.”

He started toward the cabin through the gap in the split-rail fence. He stopped halfway and called back.

“I’m mighty much obliged to you boys,” he said.

He dug down into his pants and tossed a bright dime to them. Jimson got it before it was lost in the dark.

“You boys helped me save a lot of time, and I’m mighty much obliged,” he said.

“You ain’t going to try to court that there Singing Sal, sure enough, is you, Mr. Big Buck?” Jimson asked. He and Moses came as far as the fence and leaned on it. “Everybody says Singing Sal won’t take no courting. Some say she ain’t never took not even a whiff of it. Folks have even got themselves hurt, just trying to.”

“She just ain’t never had the right man come along before and give it to her,” Big Buck said. “I’ve heard all that talk about how she won’t take no courting, but she’ll be singing a different tune when I get through with her.”

Big Buck took a few steps toward the cabin door, Moses backed off toward the road. He wasn’t taking no chances, because Singing Sal had a habit of shooting off a shotgun when she didn’t want to be bothered. Moses backed away. Jimson stayed where he was and tried to get Moses to come closer so they could see what happened when Big Buck started inside.

“There ain’t nothing to be scared of, Moses,” Jimson said. “Big Buck knows what he’s doing, or he wouldn’t have come all the way here like he done.”

Big Buck hitched up his pants again and picked his way around the woodpile and over an old wash tub full of rusty tin cans. He put one foot on the porch step and tried it with his weight to see how solid it was. The step squeaked and swayed, but it held him up.

Out in the yard by the sagging split-rail fence Jimson and Moses hung onto a post and waited to see. When Big Buck rapped on the door, their breath was stuck tight inside of them. There wasn’t time to breathe before a chair fell over backward inside the cabin. Right after that a big tin pan was knocked off a table or shelf or something, and it fell on the floor with a big racket, too. She sure had been taken by surprise.

“Who’s that at my door?” Singing Sal said. “What you want, whoever you is?

Big Buck kicked the door with one of his big yellow shoes. The whole building shook.

“Your man has done come,” he said, rattling and twisting the door knob. “Open up and let your good man inside, gal.”

“Go away from here, nigger, while you is good and able,” Singing Sal said. “I ain’t got no time to be wasting on you, whoever you is. Now, just pick up your feet and mosey on away from my house.”

“Honey,” Big Buck said, getting a good grip on the knob, “I done made up my mind a long time back to start my courting while the victuals is hot. Just set me down a plate and pull me up a chair.”

Before he could move an inch, a blast from Singing Sal’s shotgun tore through the flimsy door. It didn’t come anywhere near Big Buck, but it did sort of set him back on his heels for a minute. Then he hitched up his pants and yanked on the knob.

“Put that plaything down before you hurt yourself, honey,” he shouted through the hole in the door. “Them things don’t scare me one bit.”

He gave the knob a jerk, and it broke off, and the lock with it. The door opened slowly, and the yellow lamplight fell across the porch and yard as far as the woodpile. He strutted inside while Singing Sal stared at him wild-eyed. Nobody had ever come through her door like that before. He acted like he wasn’t scared of nothing in the world, not even double-barrel shotguns.

“Who’s you?” she asked, her eyes popping.

He started grinning at her, and his whole mouth looked like it was going to split open from one ear to the other.

“I’m your man, honey,” he said, “and I’ve come to do you some courting.”

He walked on past her, looking her over from top to bottom while she stood in a daze. He walked around her to get a good look at her from behind. She didn’t move an inch, she was that up in the air.

Jimson and Moses crept a little closer, going as far as the woodpile. They stayed behind it so they would have a place to dodge in case Singing Sal got hold of herself and started shooting again.

“I’m Big Buck from the far end of the swamp, honey,” he said. “You must have heard of me before, because I’ve been around this part of the country most all my life. It’s too bad I’ve been this long in getting here for some courting. But here I is, honey. Your good man has done come at last.”