Pale Horse Coming

by Stephen Hunter

  “Haw! Heard that one before! Knowed plenty of white boys thought they could rescue a nigger gal from being a nigger.”

  “It don’t never work. God won’t let it work.”

  “Anyhow, before I knew it, I had hired a car and traveled to Pascagoula, and began to make inquiries. I found her. I also found her boyfriend and his gang of brutish young Negro fellows, her daddy, her granddaddy, and most fearsome of all, her grandmama. They were not moved by my declaration of love, nor the whiskey on my breath. I seem to recall a scuffle, some rough thrashing and rolling, and the next thing, I was fleeing. I found myself without a shirt in a rail yard being hunted by large men of a dark persuasion interested in administering what I believe they referred to as a ‘big ol’ ass whuppin.’ That didn’t sound like much fun to me, and suddenly my love for sweet Vonetta Louise acquired a somewhat tarnished patina. I managed to sneak aboard a flatcar and lay still for the longest time. Then white men came and the Negroes left, but there was too much agitation for me to escape and I had no desire to explain my presence to them, either. Soon enough the train pulled out, and here I am.”

  “Shee-it, don’t he tell a purty story!” one of the boys guffawed. All three had enjoyed it immensely. It connected with experiences they had either had or heard of, and it amused them no end to see a fancy talker, a man of education like Sam, brought low by the twin furies of drinking whiskey and high-yeller tail, which had been the ingredients in many a poor man’s destruction in the houses of New Orleans.

  “The niggers will teach you a lesson if they catch you alone and there ain’t no other whites ’round. Way it is don’t mean jack to them in that sityation. Way up where you live, y’all don’t see that part of ’em. You just see ‘yassuh’ and ‘nossuh,’ but let me tell you, sir, they’s got it in for us, always will.”

  “I fear I have learned that lesson the hard way. You know, I am not without means. I have some money. I require only a night’s lodging—preferably not in the drunk tank, as I can afford a hotel room—a shirt and some clean underwear, and I’ll be on my way by bus tomorrow.”

  THEY took Sam to their prowl car, and then to Hattiesburg’s best hotel, where a brief intervention got Sam a fine room, though of course he had to pay cash up front.

  “Want you to see Mississippi hospitality at its finest, sir. Don’t want you to think all’s we do down here is fight the niggers for control. It’s a wonderful place to live and raise up your kids. You’d best call your wife with some story or other, ’cause I’ll bet that old gal is all upset.”

  This was the youngest, nicest and smoothest of them.

  “I certainly will, Officer.”

  “Dave, Mr. Sam. I’m Dave.”

  Dave appeared to have conceived of some major affection for Sam, along lines that Sam would never understand. Perhaps it was that, being discovered at a total disadvantage, Sam never got into his more usual powerful personality, where he was the best of all men, the smartest, the most capable, the boss prosecutor. Or perhaps it was as a residue of his experiences that he no longer quite believed so fiercely in those attributes as his birthrights, having seen how quickly and totally the world will dispense with them, and allow mean young deputies the privilege of beating a tattoo against your skull with a nightstick. In any event, whatever it was, the young officer responded to it.

  Sam called home; he spoke to his oldest son, who seemed not to have noticed that he had been gone three weeks instead of one and then his wife, who had made the observation, but just barely. He then called Connie Longacre, got drunken Rance instead, but left a number, and she called back and they had a wondrous conversation, as they always did. Sam loved her; he knew he’d never quite have the nerve to blow up his life and then hers in order to make a change, and this thing between them, this fondness, was all that he would ever have.

  The hotel sent a room service meal to his room; he slept, dreaming of Earl, convincing himself that Earl would make out just fine, Earl was all right, not to worry about Earl.

  At eight someone knocked on the door, and he had a brief seizure of horror imagining that the news he was in some sense a wanted man had caught up to him, but opened it to find merely a portly gentleman from the Longbow Men’s Apparel Shop with a selection of coats, shirts, and ties, from which Sam selected a new outfit and paid for it in cash.

  After a nice breakfast in the hotel dining room, Dave the cop came on by and drove him to the bus station. Dave had done some checking and discovered that the 10:00 A.M. bus to Meridian would get Sam to the airport in time for a 3:00 P.M. flight by DC-3 to Memphis, where his car was parked. After the cross-state drive, he’d be home in time for a late supper.

  Dave drove him through Hattiesburg, talking amiably of his life, his children, his hopes for the future—he hoped to go to night law school and asked Sam some keen professional questions, and Sam gave him forthright but encouraging answers.

  Finally, in a lull, Sam tried a bit of a probe.

  “Say, Dave, you ever hear of a place called Thebes Prison for Colored. Seemed like them black people down in Pascagoula was talking about it. Got my curiosity up.”

  “Well, sir, best bet is, don’t get curious about Thebes. They got a big set of work farms over at Parchman in the Delta, but they send the truly lost niggers down there to Thebes. You don’t want to know what goes on down there. It ain’t a purty place, no sir.”

  “Ah, I see. You’d think if conditions were so rough, they’d worry about escapes.”

  “Sir, ain’t nobody never escaped from Thebes. Never. It’s so hellish a place, it breaks a man’s spirit to be there, and he don’t got the spunk for no escape. Plus, it’s in the worst jungle on earth, and I hear they got the best hounds in the state, and a crew of guards that can run dogs and track like dogs themselves, all big boys who git extry pay to work that camp. The state likes it that way: a place for sartain bad niggers, you know, so that the niggers always have a fear of it, when they hear the word, and that fear keeps ’em fine. It’s better that way. Better for us, but better for them, too, in some ways. They don’t git their hopes up so high, and therefore live in constant disappointment and bitterness. They always know there’s a Thebes somewhere.”

  Sam nodded sagely, and said, “Yes, very interesting sentiments,” by way of seeming to agree but not really having committed to a position.

  The rest of the trip went pretty smoothly, and indeed he slept that night in his own room next to the indifferent form of his own wife, just down the hall from the indifference of his children. He’d thought he’d never make it back to such comforts, and yet he had.

  And tomorrow he’d see Connie for lunch and have a fine old time.

  But that was not the main condition of his mind. The main, the inescapable condition of his mind had to do with Earl. Over and over again, he confronted Earl’s dictate: do not tell anybody, raise a ruckus, start a thing to come get me. That will get me killed soonest.

  He parsed those words, as imperfectly as he remembered them, for a provisional escape clause, an intellectually justifiable principle of dispensation or modification, and concluded in the end that the contract was fairly drawn and that he must obey it. He did feel he had to make a report to his client, which he would do in the morning, and send off by special delivery, and he resolved to discover options within the framework of Earl’s command that would enable him to engage the issue. That was all he could do.

  Earl, he thought, and it would not leave his mind: What of Earl?

  12

  THE dogs took Earl down hard. It was their nature, but it also may have had to do with the blood that they smelled on him, his own and their cousins’ and brothers’. They hit him simultaneously, strong young hounds in full power, growling savagely as they flew upon him like blurs, and in the next tenth of a second he gave up on any idea of catching the freight and concentrated only upon covering his vitals.

  He went into a fetal ball, his knees locked to his forehead, his arms swaddling his head and throat, hi
s face buried. This drove the dogs more insane. They knew how to kill him and their frustration was immense. But there was no way they could get their muzzles and teeth into a vulnerable, soft area, so they attacked his arms and legs, knowing that if they hurt him bad enough by reflex he’d unsnap from his protected position and they could get him where he would bleed out. So for a few moments, that’s all it was, the dogs biting to get him to spasm while he fought the pain and the anger of them to stay locked up in himself.

  But then the dogs were pulled off by men, and a general kicking commenced. At first it was just two men, and then three more, and they kicked and stomped at him, and cursed and spat and threatened. This went on for a few minutes until, finally, a last fellow arrived and imposed some order.

  “Goddammit, boys, let him be, let us see what we got,” and the blows stopped whacking into him.

  “Mister, you best get up or I will finish you as you lay there.”

  Earl rolled over and uncoiled, looked up to see six men, that is, four deputies, the hound master and the sheriff, all of them sweated up and crazy-eyed from their ordeal.

  “Don’t hit me no more, please,” he said. “I didn’t do nothing.”

  Whack!

  It was a kick in the ribs, delivered with visible pleasure by the dog man.

  “Kilt three fine dogs, you did, goddamn your black soul. I’ll see you a-swing before this damn day is done.”

  Two bent to him swiftly and rolled him over. He felt his arms being pinned behind his back and the cuffs coming on.

  “Git me them leg irons, too. This fella’s a kicker, you can double bet on that!”

  The leg irons were yanked tight around Earl’s ankles.

  “There, he ain’t goin’ nowheres now, no sir.”

  The young deputies sat back from their work, then rolled Earl over.

  “Who are you, Mister?” the sheriff asked.

  “I, uh—”

  Earl could not recall the name on his phony driver’s license.

  “Hah? Who are you, goddammit, when I speak to you, you damn well better answer me right smart, you whelp.”

  “His name’s Jack Bogash,” yelled a deputy, who’d evidently found Earl’s wallet off to the side, “and he’s another goddamned Arkansas fella.”

  “Ain’t that something? You Arkansas fellas seem to stick together, don’t you? Ain’t you just the fanciest things, y’all? You come down to rescue that old—”

  “Sir, sir!” screamed Earl, “I don’t know what y’all are talking about. Please don’t hit me no more. I’m bleeding plenty bad. I need a doctor. Please, sir, oh God, I will bleed to death I don’t get a doctor.”

  “You will be okay. You may lose some blood, but if you can’t lose no blood, you oughtn’t to be playing rough. And that is not nothing to do with your problem. You have a much worse problem, and that problem is me.”

  This was the sheriff, screaming in his face.

  “Sir, my name is Jack Bogash. I am an unemployed truck driver trying to get a hunting camp going. I came down here ’cause I heard there was unleased land about, with lots of whitetail. I meant to lease the rights, build a cottage, and see to bringing some Hot Springs or Little Rock high rollers down here for the season. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Son, we done chased you twenty miles. You burned down a coupla buildings, coshed a guard, kilt three dogs, beat the Jesus out of two strong young men and run us a merry old time.”

  “Wasn’t me, sir. I swear to you. Was them other fellas.”

  “Other fellas?”

  “Yes, sir. I’s set up camp about two mile off. Looking for deer sign. Hoping to learn the land, figure on where to build my stands. These two fellas come running out of the piney woods with some story about blackies chasing them for some hellfire reason. They offered me cash money to help ’em git to the tracks. I admit now it don’t make much sense, but they offered me money. The old boy talked a blue streak, he did, and before I knowed it, he’d talked me into helping. Don’t recollect now why I done it, but he was a persuasive son-of-a-bitch, I will say. He done twisted up his ankle, so I helped him move along, sort of a human crutch. Don’t know what happened to that other fella. When I got the old man to the track, I was headed out when them dogs done hit me. That’s every true word.”

  “He’s lying,” said Opie. “I seen him shoot the dog. I seen him take a shot at me. He jumped Opie and me, and he out-boxed us both and put us both out without busting sweat, like some sort of champion. He’s a lying bastard, and he’s dangerous as hell. He’s playing scared now, but he’s just figuring on how to kill us all, you can bet. He’s a goddamn gangster.”

  “I think he’s a red. I think he’s a red sent down here to rile up the niggers.”

  “I think he’s one of them FBI boys, sniffing around. Looking for trouble.”

  “Sheriff, best thing is, you just string him up.”

  “Please, please, fellas. I didn’t do nothing. Young man, I swear to you wasn’t me hurt your dogs and took a shot at you. That was that other feller, the one still loose. I don’t hardly know how to shoot a gun at all. I done some boxing once, that’s the only thing, and if I hit you it was because you had a gun and was fixing to shoot at me, that’s all. What choice did I have?”

  “You say you are leasing hunting properties. That would make you a hunter, and unless I miss my bet, them are hunting boots you’re wearing. But you don’t know how to shoot a gun? Yet someone shot three dogs moving fast. That would be this other missing fella, who left no tracks or scent for the dogs to track. Then at your age, you outbox two strong strapping young fellows, but you are just an Arkansas truck driver without a job. Mister, your story got more holes than a piece of angel food cake.”

  “He’s a goddamned plenty dangerous man.”

  “I’ve had enough. Sir, you are too much for us to handle. Boys, take him to the tree, that’s all. I will be done with these Arkansas people for good and all.”

  IT took an hour, but they knew exactly where they were headed; Earl realized they had been there before. It was a hanging tree. He guessed if they caught a runaway out here, that’s where he went. Or if someone talked against them in the town, that’s where he went. These boys didn’t like the shooting close up, they couldn’t stand the look of a man’s skull all bashed in by a .45 and blown out on the other side. The hanging tree killed easy and bloodless.

  “Sheriff, I’m telling you—”

  “You shut up now, Mister. I don’t want your words confusing these boys. You keep your mouth shut or I’ll have Pepper do some work with his knife on your tongue, and that’ll shut you up right and proper. You’ll have to meet your maker without no tongue.”

  “I’ll do that right now, Sheriff, you want. That’s what we do to a dog killer down here in Mississippi. You kill a dog, you got to pay. Dogs is valuable, and them three was like my brothers.”

  The convoy marched on through the pines, and Earl tried to lag, but rifle muzzles prodding him urgently kept a spring in his step, and the blood oozing from the many dog bites wouldn’t let him relax. Eventually, the group found a path, which speeded matters up considerably, and then they encountered a hill. Up there, at last, was one of the rogue oaks that this piney woods somehow allowed to grow, a stout tree with a limb heavy enough to support a man’s full weight, a task for which no pine could be counted on.

  It was barren and windswept, as such places inevitably are, and no pine would grow close to the old oak, which was barkless and crooked like a broken bone, climbing twisted into the blue sky.

  “Okay, boys. You know what to do.”

  “You should make him dig his grave,” said Opie, “so’s we don’t have to.”

  “Yes, let’s put a goddamn three-foot shovel in the hands of a man that capable, and see which of us he kills with it and if he can git all of us before we get him. I swear, boy, you don’t think a lick before you speak your mind.”

  “Sheriff, this ain’t right,” Earl said. “I ain’t done no
thing. I just helped two boys say they was running from a mob of colored.”

  “That’s another thing. You ever hear of white boys running from niggers? If you actually heard that story, which I doubt, and you were so stupid to believe it, then you are getting your neck stretched for being a dumb bunny, too blame ugly stupid to live. But more likely you think we’re the dumb bunnies who’d believe such a crock of sawdust. Now, I think you’re some kind of hero type, down here to rescue that old goat. Hired by his family, maybe, for cash money. I hope you spent it already. You paid the goddamned price for it, and see what being a hero does for a fella in Mississippi?”

  The rope went over the limb, and was then looped by one of the young fellas he had outfought around his neck, and pulled tight. Of course there was no horse for them to drive out from under him, and nothing for him to fall from; he’d die, not by the merciful snap of a neck giving way to gravity, but slowly, pulled aloft by strong stupid boys, to asphyxiate slowly, twitching, twisting, shitting, pissing, gagging.

  Yet Earl was not particularly frightened now, at the last. He and death were old friends, and as a professional man killer for the Marine Corps he had sent that old gentleman many a customer in his time. He had known it would come for him, sooner or later, and now he faced it, as before, the way a predator does—without much fear, with much coolness, with the bull-goose drive to do this last thing well and give these boys, squalid as they may seem, something to remember him by: the one who was a man and died a man.

  The rope pulled taut, lifting him onto his toes.

  “Usually they be beggin’ about now,” someone said.

  “Cold day in hell afore I beg to white trash like you Mississippi peckers.”

  “Ain’t he a hard one?”