The Ponder Heart (8 page)

It would be like this. I was to testify about what happened. That's very important. Dr. Ewbanks was to testify from the medical point of view. And a few other odds and ends. But Uncle Daniel, the main one, was just supposed to sit there and be good, and not say anything at all. And he felt left out. He didn't understand a bit. It was so unlikely! Why, he loves the limelight.

Everybody in town was indignant with DeYancey when they heard. More than one member of our congregation baked and sent Uncle Daniel his favorite cake—banana—and a Never Fail Devil's Food came from the Clanahans the day Judge Tip went off. Miss Teacake sent a beautiful Prince of Wales cake in black and white stripes—her specialty, but I couldn't help thinking of
convicts
when I sliced it. The bank sent a freezer of peach ice cream from their own peaches, beautifully turned and packed. Uncle Daniel got the idea things must be more momentous than he thought. And we couldn't let a soul get near enough to him for him to do any talking beforehand—that was the hardest part.

Of course they hadn't done anything
about
Uncle Daniel: he didn't have to
go
anywhere. They knew where he was: with me.

"They're letting you roam," says DeYancey to Uncle Daniel.

"
Roam?
" says he.

"Now that isn't anything for you to worry about," says De Yancey. "Just means they can count on you for coming." As if they could keep him away.

But De Yancey Clanahan was here roaming around with him. I never saw the like—he was his shadow! He said, "Come on in the dining room, Daniel, I want to practice you not talking." That was easier in the dining room than anywhere else, but it wouldn't be clear sailing anywhere. Uncle Daniel couldn't bear to hear out what De Yancey was saying, that was always the trouble.

He managed to keep up his appetite, anyway. When the day came, he was up with the sun as usual, and looking pretty cheerful at breakfast. He had on his new white Sunday suit and white shirt with the baby-blue pinstripe in it, and snow-white shoes and his Sunday tie. He set out when breakfast was over and got a fresh haircut at the barbershop and came back looking fat and fine to me, with a little Else Poulsen rose in his lapel.

 

Well, the town was jam-packed. Everybody and his brother was on hand, on account of Uncle Daniel's general popularity—and then people not knowing the Ponders but knowing
of
them are just about everywhere you'd look. It was a grand day, hot but with that little breeze blowing that we get from the south.

Uncle Daniel and I didn't get there either early or late, but just on time, and Uncle Daniel had to speak to a world of people—but just "Hello." He was delighted at where our seats were saved—inside the railing. That was the furthest down front he'd ever sat anywhere. I kept my gloves on, and shook open my Japanese fan, and just fanned.

Of course, inside the Courthouse was hot, and one ceiling fan sticks, and the Peacocks coming to town and crowding their way in behind us made the courtroom a good deal hotter.

They came in a body. I didn't count, either time, but I think there were more Peacocks if possible at the trial than at the funeral. I imagine all Polk was there with them there were people we'd never laid eyes on before in our lives.

The immediate Peacock family had paraded into town in Uncle Daniel's pick-up truck that he'd sent them, as pretty as you please. To see them in Polk was bad enough, but you ought to see them in Clay! Country! And surprised to death at where they found themselves, I bet you a nickel, even if they were the ones started this.

We saw them come in; I turned right around and looked. Old lady Peacock wagged in first, big as a house, in new bedroom slippers this time, with pompons on the toes. She had all of them behind her—girls going down in stairsteps looking funnier and funnier in Bonnie Dee's parceled-out clothes, and boys all ages and sizes and the grown ones with wives and children, and Old Man Peacock bringing up the rear. I didn't remember him at all, but there he was—carrying the lunch. He had a face as red as a Tom turkey and not one tooth to his name, but he had on some new pants. I noticed the tag still poking out the seam when he creaked in at the door.

They're
not dying out. Took up the first two rows, with some sitting on laps. And I think it was their dog barked so incessantly at all the dogs in town from the Courthouse porch. Now that the boys weren't hawling, they sat there with their mouths wide open. The biggest ones' babies just wore their little didies to court, one of them with a brand-new double holster around on top, about to fall off. Couldn't a one of them talk. And of course there was eternal jumping up from the Peacocks to get water. Our drinking fountain in the Courthouse quit working years ago, so it's heaped up with concrete to cover the spout and rounded off and painted blue—our sheriff's wife's idea—and you have to know where to go if you're honestly thirsty.

Uncle Daniel spoke to the Peacocks, but then I saw his face light up, like it only does for a newcomer in his life. And in sailed that lawyer, Dorris R. Gladney. Long, black, buzzardy coat, black suspenders, beaky nose, and on his little finger a diamond bigger than mine, but not half as expensive. Walked too low, and got up and sat down too fast, like all the Gladneys. We all know people who're in a terrible hurry about something! And I understand Mr. Gladney has been peppered with buckshot on several occasions in the course of his career—shows you what kind of people he's thrown with. He rushed up and down the room several times, to show he'd come, and patted the little Peacocks on the head, but they didn't smile an inch.

Then in came DeYancey, real pale, and he patted Uncle Daniel and
he
smiled. And all around us, everybody in the courtroom was talking ninety to nothing when old Judge Waite brought down the gavel and the whole conglomeration sat up.

The other side was first.

Mr. Truex Bodkin came on to start—was led on, rather—he's blind. He's the coroner.

"Heart failure," he said. "Natural causes—I mean
other than
natural causes, could be. That's what I meant—could've been other than natural causes."

"This is the case of the State versus Daniel Ponder we're on today," says the Judge. "Put your mind to your work. Suppose I acted that way." Poor old blind Truex is led back. And do you know who was called next? Nobody you'd ever hear of in a thousand years.

Would you guess, that after all that had been done for him, Uncle Daniel had taken it on himself to send Bonnie Dee
his own message?
That same Saturday I stopped the money, he did it. By word of mouth, of course. And he picked out the slowest, oldest, dirtiest, most brainless old Negro man he could find to send it by. I thought it showed a little ingratitude.

It was Big John—worked for us out there since time was: I don't know what he
did.
Always wore the same hat and shoes and overalls, and couldn't sign his name if life depended. Old man lives off by himself, a way, way back on the place—wonder how far anybody would have to go to find him. I never saw where he lived. First, Uncle Daniel had had to send a little Negro from the barbership to get the old one to come in and
learn
the message. Whole thing took all day.

All the money Big John's ever made is right on him now, in his overall pocket, if somebody hasn't taken it again—that's all he wants it for, to carry it around. I expect he's been robbed a hundred times, among the Negroes, but he'll always ask you for money any time he sees you. Of course he and Uncle Daniel get along
fine.
He used to work in the flowers, if you could keep him out of the beds. Dug holes for Grandma 5
that's
what she did with Big John.

So here he was. Around his hat is a bunch of full-blown roses, five or six Etoiles in a row, with little short stems stuck down in the hatband—they're still growing in Grandma's garden, in spite of everything.

"Did Mr. Daniel Ponder send word by you to his wife, Miss Bonnie Dee Ponder, on the fourteenth day of June of this year?" is what old Gladney asks him.

Big John agrees with you every time. He nods his head, and the roses bow up and down.

"Now I can tell you're a reliable Negro," says old Gladney. "And I just want you to tell me what the message was. What did Mr. Daniel tell you to say to the lady?"

Big John has a little voice like a whistle the air won't come through just right.

"Go tell Miss Bonnie Dee—go tell Miss Bonnie Dee—" He's getting started.

"Keep on. Tell Miss Bonnie Dee what?"

Big John fixed his mouth, and recited it off. "'I'm going to kill you dead, Miss Bonnie Dee, if y' don't take m' back.'"

I
would have thought Big John would get the message wrong, to begin with—that's one reason I'd never have picked him. But there was no mistaking that—he got
Uncle Daniel's
right!

Old man Gladney says after him, real soft, "'I'm going to kill you dead, Miss Bonnie Dee—' Did he laugh, I wonder, when he said that?"

DeYancey took objection to that, but Big John didn't even know what laugh was. He just scratched his head up under his hat.

"What made you remember it so good, Uncle?"

Big John still only scratched his head. Finally he says, "'Cause Mr. Daniel give me a dime."

That was all he could think of. But I knew it was because of that high esteem Big John held Uncle Daniel in, that made him remember so fine. I must say Uncle Daniel held esteem for Big John, too. He always did like him—because of the money he could deposit on him, and then he didn't mind old dirty people the way you and I do. He let Big John come around him and listened to what he said, both. They listened to each other. When you saw them walking white and black together over the back lot, you'd have thought there went two Moguls, looking over the world.

"And what word did Miss Bonnie Dee send back?" says old Gladney. But Big John could remember that about as well as the frizzly hen that comes up to the back door.

"Her didn't have nothing to give me," was the best he could do.

"But Mr. Daniel Ponder did send this message to Miss Bonnie Dee Peacock Ponder, paying you for its safe delivery, Uncle, only two short days before her death: 'I'm going to kill you dead if you don't take me back.' Didn't he?"

"Ain't said to
me,
to
her
," Big John whistled out. "Ain't said to me
that
time. I ain't doin' nothin'. Only but what he tell me."

"That's right. 'I'm going to kill you dead, Miss Bonnie Dee'—and now he's done it," says old Gladney sharp, and no matter how DeYancey's objecting, Big John's agreeing like everything, bobbing his head with those flowers on it under everybody's nose.

De Yancey doesn't want to ask him anything—makes a sign like he's brushing flies away.

"Well, go on, Uncle, I'm through with you," says Gladney.

"He won't go away if you don't give him a nickel," I remarks from my seat.

"What for?" says old Gladney, but forks over, and the old man goes off real pleased. I must say the whole courtroom smelled of Big John and his flower garden for a good time afterward.

"I think as a witness, Mr. Gladney, Big John Beech was worth every bit of that," says DeYancey.

But Uncle Daniel looked to me like his feelings were already hurt. Big John up there instead of him.

Well, of course I hid it—but I was surprised myself at a few who were chosen as witnesses. Here rose up somebody I'd never expect to see testifying in a thousand years—Miss Teacake Magee. Old Gladney begins to tackle her.

"Mrs. Magee, you were married to the defendant, Mr. Daniel Ponder, for two months in the year 1944, were you not?"

Miss Teacake had cut bangs, and was putting on that she could barely whisper; the Judge had to tell her to speak up so people could hear.

"And divorced?"

You couldn't hear a thing.

"Why were you divorced, may I ask?" says old Gladney, cheerful-like.

"I just had to let him go," whispers Miss Teacake. That's just what she always says.

"Would you care to describe any features of your wedded life?" asks old Gladney, and squints like he's taking Miss Teacake's picture there with her mouth open.

"Just a minute," says the Judge. "Miss Edna Earle's girl is standing in the door to find out how many for dinner. I'll ask for a show of hands," and puts up his the first.

It was a table full, I can tell you. Everybody but the Peacocks, it appeared to me. I made a little sign to Ada's sister she'd better kill a few more hens.

Then Gladney gives a long look at the jury and says, "Never mind, Mrs. Magee, we understand perfectly. You'd rather keep it to yourself that you were harboring a booger-man. I won't ask you for another word about it."

Miss Teacake's still looking at him pop-eyed.

Old Gladney backs away on her easy, and DeYancey hops over and says, "Miss Teacake, just one question will clear this up, for us and you both, I think. In the period of this, your second marriage, did you ever at any time have cause to fear the defendant? Were you scared of Daniel, in other words?"

"Listen here. I don't scare that easy, DeYancey Clanahan," says Miss Teacake in her everyday voice. They tell her just to answer the question. All she says is, "Ever since I lost Professor Magee, I've had to look after myself." She keeps a pistol by her bed, and for all I know, it's loaded.

"But you did ask Mr. Ponder to go. Would anything ever induce you to ask him to come back?" says old Gladney, pointing a finger.

And she hoots out "No!" and scares herself. But by that time they're through with her.

She was mighty dressed up for that five minutes. Had a black silk fan she never did get worked open. Very different from appearing in church, appearing in a court trial. She said afterwards she had no
idea,
when she was asked to testify, that it might be for the other side.

And here next came Narciss—her whole life spent with the Ponders, and now grinning from ear to ear. And she had that little black dog of hers with her. She didn't know any better than let him come, so there he trotted. And her black umbrella she came to town under was folded up and swinging by her skirt.