The Bottoms

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Billy Ray, one of the colored men who had carried the body in, lit a lantern and brought it over to the table, as it was pretty dark inside the icehouse. The only other light was light from cracks in the roof and from a few breaks in the board siding.

  The lantern made the room glow orange. Doc Tinn draped the lantern handle on a hook that hung from a rafter over the table. When he did that we moved back from our place at the hole, waited, then slid our faces back. I was afraid we’d make a shadow that would cause them to look up and see us, but with chinaberry limbs hanging over us, and that cloud across the sun, there wasn’t a noticeable change. Least I wasn’t aware of one. And the bottom line was curiosity ate up caution.

  Doc Tinn pulled on a pair of big rubber gloves and poked the body with his big fingers. He took off the gloves, lit a match, held it close to her mouth and looked inside. He waved the match out, slipped on the gloves again, stuck a finger down her throat and worked it. He came up with a little something on his finger, wiped that on a cloth he took out of his bag. He stuck a finger up her nostrils, worked it around, wiped what he found on the same rag, then folded it.

  He said, “I’m gonna have to cut on her to see the inside of her stomach.”

  “The inside of her stomach?” Daddy said.

  Doc Tinn nodded. “I ain’t maybe had the schoolin’ Doc Stephenson’s had, but I got my hunches.”

  “Well,” Daddy said, “I know for a fact Doc Stephenson learned his doctor’n out of a book and he did his first doctor’n on horses and cows.”

  Doc Tinn grinned. “So did I.”

  Daddy grinned back, said, “Go on and do what you got to do.”

  “This won’t be pretty.”

  Daddy, less humored now, nodded. “I know.”

  Doc Tinn took a tool from his bag, a scalpel, began cutting at the woman’s chest and down to her navel. I thought at first I was gonna lose my breakfast, but I was just too mesmerized to turn away. Doc Stephenson wasn’t entirely wrong. Boys were fascinated by a dead body, but not in the way he had suggested.

  The cutting was odd in that there wasn’t any blood. She was long dead and pretty well frozen, but there was a hint of gas that rose up from the corpse and through the slit in the roof. It made me feel sick for a moment, then it passed.

  I squinted when he started handling the sweet meats inside her. Finally he cut open something, reached in with his hand, took out some dark things, and put them on the table.

  I turned away for a moment, saw that Richard and Abraham were still looking. I didn’t want to be thought a weak sister, so I looked again.

  Doc Tinn had Daddy open the front door to let in some more light. There were people out by the porch and Daddy had to run ’em off. They moved away reluctantly. They were looking up at us on the roof, but no one spilled the beans. I think they were glad someone was getting a look.

  Doc Tinn went to work on the woman’s privates, cut, probed around down there for a while, and Daddy moved across the room with the other two men.

  This went on for some time, and finally the doctor stopped, rolled the body over, looked at it, rolled it on its back again, said, “Billy Ray. Will you or Cyrus bring me a pan of water and some soap and a towel?”

  Both Billy Ray and Cyrus went away. Doc Tinn pulled off his gloves and lay them on the table. He said, “Now this is just my opinion, mind you.”

  “I appreciate it,” Daddy said, walking up to stand beside him. “Go on.”

  “Wasn’t no wild hog nor a panther done this.”

  “I never thought it was. Panthers don’t normally attack people. It could happen, but it ain’t normal.”

  “Panther. Wild hog. They don’t work a body like this no how. This was a man done it.”

  “I figured as much.”

  “Used a real sharp knife. These cuts was made while she was alive. Mostly. But some was after. Look at her hands here.” Doc Tinn reached down and took hold of one, lifted it, turned it so Daddy could see. “There’s cuts on ’em, like she was tryin’ to fend the fellow off. Also there’s fingernail wounds. This means he did most of this while she was alive. See how she’s buried her own nails into her palms, trying to deal with the pain. There’s a stab here on her back, and a slash at the kidney area. None of these are deep, ’cept for the stab. It’s pretty deep, and it was twisted to be pulled out. I think she tried to fight him off, he had a knife, he slashed at her, she put up her hands, they got cut, she turned to run, he stabbed her in the back, then slashed her, or maybe the other way around. She went down, and from the looks of the way she’s been used … you know, down there … she was raped. She’s all torn up, so she was forced. He got through with that, he cut on her some while she was alive. Her clitoris is missing.”

  “Her what?” Daddy asked.

  “It’s down there with her private parts. You rub it on a live woman and they get really excited.”

  “Yeah?” Daddy said. “Yeah.”

  Doc Tinn said, “It’s a little nub and it rolls under your thumb or finger. It’s a thing a man ought to know, you know what I mean.”

  Daddy nodded again, as if contemplating a great mystery, or rather common information that had somehow been denied him. I filed it away in my own file cabinet, though at the time I wasn’t sure it was something I’d ever need.

  Daddy said, “He cut it off? This cli …”

  “Clitoris. Did it just as precise as could be. And from the looks of the wound she bled good. Probably still alive through that too, though I don’t know for sure. Lot of the other cuts and slashes and such I think he did after he choked her to death.”

  Doc Tinn leaned over the table. “See her throat there. Those bruises. Them are from hands. He finished up with her, I think he threw her in the river.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Well, I can’t say for sure, but there ain’t no river in her lungs, so she didn’t drown. I know a little about drownings. Flood five years ago there was twenty-five people drowned. I seen what it did to bodies.”

  “Twenty-five people?” Daddy said. “Five years ago. I don’t remember anything about that.”

  “Wasn’t none of ’em white,” Doc Tinn said.

  “Oh,” Daddy said.

  “This woman was dead when she was thrown in. There’s all kinds of scrapes on her forehead there, and there was a piece of gravel in one of her eyes, lodged in the corner there. River gravel. Body thrown in a river will mostly go face down, and the current will drag it along and scrape it up, like it’s done on her forehead there. There was bits of river in her mouth, throat, and nose, but not in her lungs, so I figure she was dead already.”

  “Makes sense,” Daddy said. “But if he threw her in the river, how does that account for her being tied to that tree?”

  “Well now, Doctor Stephenson may be kinda right. Someone got the body out of the river and cut on it some more. Way her breasts are all cut up there, that was done afterward. You can tell ’cause there ain’t no real blood wound. He was cuttin’ on a corpse.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Then he tied her to that tree with barbed wire, way you said your boy found her. Wrapped some vines around her and such, and left her there. I wouldn’t be surprised he came back a few times and messed with the body. Your boy hadn’t found it, he might have come back some more. I think he would have.”

  “You couldn’t know that?”

  “No. But like I said, some of them wounds was after death. It might have been done in one trip, but they’re some with maggot eggs in them, and some not so many. The maggots was just gettin’ started in some of them wounds when your boy found it and you got her down before they was thick. Maggots don’t just work one wound at a time. Flies get all over them wounds, lay eggs in them. Ones wasn’t packed with eggs was because there wasn’t time for ’em to.”

  Daddy considered on this for a moment. “Like you said, though. Stephenson could have been right. It could have been someone else found the body and did those thin
gs. It don’t mean there was just one fella did it all.”

  “Uh huh, but what do you think? What’s your gut tell you, Constable? Man did this in the first place is the more likely to do it some more. I think he threw her away, like she was garbage, threw her in the river, but then figured he hadn’t got his fill, come back, got her out, and did the rest.”

  “How would he know where to find her? She could have washed downriver.”

  “She could have. But I figure he threw her in there, tied her out like a trot line. Look here. You see this around her ankle. See that friction. I think after he killed her he tied a rope around her and tossed her out. Maybe had some kind of weight tied to her. That way he knew where to find her. And just for the record, on her butt there, I think that’s a turtle been nibblin’.”

  The sun came out from behind its cloud and it was bright enough to burn right through the leaves on the chinaberry tree, giving our immediate world a shade of green. I could see the shapes of our heads move across the woman’s body on the table, and Daddy looked up as we pulled our heads back.

  We didn’t look again. We just sat there listening. Doc Tinn said, “You know ain’t no one here gonna worry about her none.”

  I didn’t hear Daddy respond. Doc Tinn continued.

  “She’s colored, but colored over here don’t want no trouble. If it’s one of our own did it, and we find out who it is, well, it’ll get taken care of. We tell the whites a colored did it, well, ain’t no tellin’ who all will pay.”

  “Could be a white man done it.”

  “Even better reason colored won’t get involved.”

  “Can you see to it she gets a proper burial, and let me know when?”

  “I can. We got a graveyard that’ll let anyone in.”

  “Yep. Dirt ain’t particular.”

  “Nor the worms,” Doc Tinn said. “And one other thing.” He pulled a long pair of tweezer things out of his bag and picked something up lying between the woman’s legs. “Soon as I went to work down there, this fell out. It was pushed up in her.”

  “What is it?”

  “It looks like paper. It’s so bloody and wet, there’s no telling now, but that’s what it looks like.”

  “He stuck paper up her?”

  “Rolled up a small piece and put it there,” Doc Tinn said.

  “Why?”

  Doc Tinn shook his head. “It means something to him. I couldn’t begin to tell you what.”

  We heard someone else come in, speak, and I realized it was the Reverend arriving. After greetings, I heard the Reverend say in a high voice, “Uh huh. Oh, my God. That be Jelda May. Jelda May Sykes. She was a harlot, but she come around now and then to talk to me. She was always wantin’ to do different and get salvation, but couldn’t. She worked them juke joints, way down yonder on the river. Take in both black and white trade I hear. She did some conjurin’.”

  “Conjurin’?” Daddy asked.

  “She worked the juju. Magic spells and such.”

  “You don’t believe that?” Daddy said. “You, a man of God?”

  “Wasn’t all bad spells she worked,” Reverend said. “Poor, poor thing. Good Lord! Who cut her up like that?”

  “Some of it was done by whoever killed her,” Doc Tinn said, “and some I did as way of examination. Checkin’ the cause of death.”

  “Ain’t nothing like that need to be done after someone done had the indignities of death. Good Lord, what a mess. You ought not have done that.”

  “You know what kind of animal you’re huntin’,” Daddy said. “How it lives, how it kills, you got a better chance of catchin’ him.”

  “Lord, poor Jelda May,” the Reverend said. “She better off now. She in a better place.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I heard Doc Tinn say. Then me and my newfound pals eased toward the chinaberry tree and started down.

  7

  By the time we hit the ground and got around front, the crowd was starting to break up. Folks were mumbling back and forth, mad ’cause they hadn’t learned anything, and the old colored man, Uncle Pharaoh, was moving his pig cart toward the commissary with, “Now get on, Pig Jesse.”

  “I got to go catch up,” Abraham said when he saw Uncle Pharaoh. “He gonna need some help with some groceries and such.”

  “I’m with them,” Richard said. “It was nice meetin’ you, Harry,” and they went away.

  I felt abandoned and full of guilt. Daddy had told me to do a certain thing, and that was wait. I told myself that I had waited, but I knew I was splitting hairs. I had waited on the roof of the icehouse and seen what I wasn’t supposed to see; heard what I wasn’t supposed to hear. I didn’t always do as told, but somehow, this time, I felt as if I had transgressed beyond forgiveness.

  I tried to look innocent as Daddy, Doc Tinn, and the Reverend came out. I had not seen the Reverend enter, but it had to be him. He was a tall, very lean colored man with a flat nose and a look like someone waiting on something bad to happen so he could talk salvation. He wore black pants and shoes and a white shirt with yellow sweat stains under the arms. He had on a thin black tie that looked to be fraying about the edges and he was putting on a soft brown felt hat as he came out of the icehouse. The hat had a little bright red and green feather in the brim on the left side.

  As they came down the steps, Daddy, slipping on his hat, looked over at me, and though he didn’t say anything, his gaze made me nervous. At the bottom of the icehouse steps Daddy gave the Reverend something, turned to Doc Tinn and extended his hand. Doc Tinn, still unaccustomed to such, stuck out his hand quickly and they shook.

  “I want to thank you for your help,” Daddy said. “I may be talkin’ to you again.”

  “It’s all just opinion, Constable,” Doc Tinn said.

  “It sounded like reasonable opinion to me,” Daddy said.

  “Thank you, kindly, Constable.”

  They talked a little more with the Reverend. I saw Daddy reach in his pocket and hand the preacher something, but I couldn’t make it out. Then he shook hands with him, turned around, and called to me.

  “Son, let’s go.”

  We walked over to Doc Tinn’s house, ahead of the Doc, got in our car, and drove over to the commissary. Uncle Pharaoh was around front, sitting in his cart in the shade of his willow and burlap sack cover, drinking a Dr Pepper. His hog, Jesse, was lying in the dirt with the cart posts and straps still on him. He had his head just under the porch in the shade and was grunting away, eating some old moldy bread.

  “Now that’s a hog,” Daddy said to Uncle Pharaoh.

  “Mr. Constable, how you doin’?”

  Uncle Pharaoh knew my Daddy. My heart sank. Would he mention that me and Abraham and Richard had climbed on top of the icehouse?

  “How the world treatin’ you, Mr. Constable?”

  “Fair enough,” Daddy said. “And you?”

  “I could complain, but it wouldn’t do no good.”

  Daddy and Uncle Pharaoh exchanged a small laugh, and Daddy lifted his hand as if to wave Uncle Pharaoh away, like he couldn’t handle such powerful humor that time of day.

  We went inside the commissary. I said, “You know him?”

  “Son, wasn’t it obvious I did?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “He used to be the greatest hunter in all these bottoms until a wild hog tore up his leg. It’s a critter they call Old Satan. He wanders these here bottoms. Big old boar hog. And ain’t no one ever been able to kill him. He’s mainly over here on this side of the county. ’Round here and over toward Mud Creek.”

  I started to ask if what Doc Stephenson had said about a wild hog tearing up that woman could be possible, when I caught myself.

  “Sure are lots of towns named after creeks,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Daddy said.

  Abraham and Richard were inside getting groceries together for Uncle Pharaoh. They spoke to me and Daddy as we came in, then went on about their business.

  Daddy bought us a slab
of bologna, a box of crackers, some rat cheese, and a couple Co’-Colas. We sat on the front porch of the commissary where it was cooler and watched Jesse snooze with his nose in the shade and Uncle Pharaoh nurse his Dr Pepper. Daddy used his pocketknife to slice up the meat and cheese and he laid them out on the butcher paper they had come wrapped in. We ate the meat and cheese with the crackers and drank our pops. Wagons rattled by with fresh-cut lumber in them.

  We sat quietly for a time, then Daddy said, “Son.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I prefer you do as I ask. You get to be a grown man, you can do as you please. Long as it’s within the law and within God’s law, but as a boy, you do as I ask.”

  So he had seen me. “Yes sir.”

  We ate some more. I said, “You gonna give me a whippin’?”

  “No. You’re gettin’ kind of old for that foolishness, don’t you think?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Well, you are. You act more your age, and I’ll treat you your age. That a deal?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Being your age means listenin’ to what I tell you. Or your Mama tells you. You got to show some good sense. I didn’t want you to see all that.”

  “I done seen her, Daddy.”

  “I know, son. But that was an accident. This here, it wasn’t none of your business. It was in a different light. Hear what I’m sayin’?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “That poor woman was loved by someone somewhere, and it ain’t good to have a bunch a people gaping at her like she’s somethin’ in a circus. She ain’t got no control over what happens to her now, so we got to control it. Everything done there was to find out what we needed to know. And another thing, son, there’s things you don’t need in your head ’less you got to have ’em. You may not think that now, but believe me, there’s things you don’t need and they’ll come back to you and they won’t be pleasant. And by the way. I noticed you boys were up there soon as you climbed on the roof. Ain’t none of you quiet. Just to let you know, them boys are pretty good boys. Uncle Pharaoh’s the little one’s grandpa.”