Don't Hang My Friend

by Raffensperger, John;

  “Miz Trimmer, Miz Trimmer, you got to breathe, you gotta keep breathing.”

  I pushed on her chest, but couldn’t force air into her lungs. It didn’t do no good. She took in one last gurgly, raspy shallow breath. I waited and prayed and pushed her chest, but it was all over. It was like she had stopped working at the job of living.

  I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach and realized that the morphine was a bad idea. It was a fine drug but Doc had once said it depressed breathing in weak patients. It was too late. I pushed harder on her chest, until her whole body bounced up and down. I could feel her heart, beating and pounding inside her chest like an animal in a cage. It couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, then her heart gave out and her spirit flew away.

  I held her cold hand and tried to will life into her body. I had killed her, as if I put a bullet in her head. Maybe a hole in her throat or digitalis might have helped. I had no business trying to be a doctor. If Doc had been here, she would still be alive. Then it struck me that I had the responsibility for a dying woman’s request to take care of papers that I wasn’t sure even existed.

  Miz Trimmers dead eyes looked as if to say that I had a job to do and better do it right. Women would have to come from town to lay her out and the preacher would have to arrange a burial. That meant getting Aunt Alice or Bessie Pendelton. On top of all that, the darky woman and the two girls were yowling and tearing their hair like sick cats. I shook the oldest girl until she stopped blubbering. “Get Old Isaiah, right now.”

  She went off down the road. I shook Young Isaiah’s wife until she quieted down enough to make sense.

  “Miz Trimmer say it’s in the quilt,” she said.

  The dead woman’s clawed hand hung onto the quilt like she didn’t want no one to have it. I spread and smoothed the quilt and sure enough, there was the crinkly feel of paper sewed in between the quilt’s layers . I cut through the cloth until I came to papers tied up in a bundle. On the outside was written in a spidery hand, “Last will and testament of Captain John Trimmer”. I stuck the whole bundle under my shirt along with the little .32 Colt.

  The woman and the two girls went running, yowling and tearing their hair down the dirt road toward their cabins. It was awful lonely in that big house with a dead woman. The sun was real low and daylight was fading fast when I heard hoof-beats. Even though he was at the foot of the hill, in a cloud of dust, I could tell it was Doc from the way he whipped up the horse. In a minute, I made out Bessie, holding her hat with one hand and the seat with her other. The horse was lathered and his head sagged, like he had been run near to death, when they stopped in front of the house.

  “You are too late. I kilt her with morphine.” I gulped the words and pointed into the house. “They tore the place up and hurt her bad. She’s in the bedroom.”

  “Tell the whole story,” he said. I babbled it all out, but forgot about the woman from New Orleans, on account of I was so upset.

  Doc looked at the body. “The glands in her neck are swollen and the skin rash is a sure sign of diphtheria. Wasn’t nothing more you could do. The morphine eased her last moments.”

  While Doc was examining the bruise marks on her head and a cut on the scalp, Bessie went to get the Negro women to help lay out Miz Trimmer. The oldest girl came running back up the dirt road. “They is fixin’ to hang Old Isaiah,” she yelled.

  Bessie flung me in the buggy and the horse that looked like he was half dead reared up like a bee had stung his tail when I hit him with the whip. We went flying down the road, through the woods. When we came into the clearing, there was Old Isaiah standing on his own wagon with a noose around his neck. The other end of the rope was tied to a cottonwood tree, so if the wagon moved, he would hang. The three men with white sheets on their heads held guns on the old black man. One was on a black horse with a white face. I knew it was Murphy when he whipped and cursed the pair of mules that was hitched to the wagon. Those mules were famous for stubbornness. Neither moved. In front of the cabins, more spooks in white sheets held guns on a dozen Negro children and women and Zebediah and Obediah were tied up with blood running down their backs from lash marks.

  Old Isaiah stood ramrod straight with his hands tied behind his back. His eyes were closed and his grizzled old head was bowed in prayer. The mules stood absolutely still. They didn’t even twitch a tail.

  Bessie’s hat had come off and her hair was streaming out like one of those avenging angels. She screamed like one too. “Stop it, stop, right now!”

  We came fast, in a cloud of dust, that must have looked like an Old Testament vision in the gathering dusk. I yanked the reins and stopped the buggy. Bessie leaped onto the wagon beside Isaiah and before anyone could say “boo” she had unhitched the noose from around Isaiah’s neck. “Cowards, all of you are cowards. I know who you are and if you kill this old man or hurt that boy, you will swing and rot in hell,” Bessie yelled. She shook her fist. Murphy made like he was going for his gun, but without even knowing how it got there, I had the .32 Colt in one hand with the hammer cocked, aimed at Murphy.

  Any one of those men could have killed me in a blink of an eye, but that mad woman with the flying hair stopped them cold.

  When Murphy let off whipping, the mules stepped out and walked the wagon away from the hanging tree. Old Isaiah was still standing on the wagon, holding one hand to his neck. The rope, still tied to a cottonwood tree, was swinging in the air.

  “Sumbitch,” Murphy cursed.

  He pulled the eye holes of his sheet back in front of his face so he could see to aim his rifle. I fired the pistol but didn’t hit nothing Murphy Bessie screeched and kicked the back end of his horse. The horse got big eyed, bucked, and went flyin’ up the dirt road toward Miz Trimmer’s house. One of the spooks threw up a shotgun, but his balance wasn’t good and when he fired, I felt a whole load of buckshot part the air over my head. Bessie screeched again and jumped off the wagon like she was going after the fellow.

  Just then, there was another gunshot, a great boom that sounded like Doc’s old .44. Then the black horse, with Murphy hangin’ on with both hands came tearing back across the clearing in front of the cabins. Murphy sawed on the reins and yelled whoa, but that horse took off through the woods, going hell for leather. He went crashing through the brush, with limbs cracking and breaking off trees. Bessie stopped to catch her breath and everyone stood still, like one of them tableaus they put on at church.

  After a while, Doc trudged down the road, bent over and walking slow, like he was awful tired. The big Navy Colt was hanging from one hand, like it weighed a ton. When he got to the middle of the clearing he put the gun in his belt and looked at the half dozen men on horses with white sheets over their heads. Any one of them could have cut him down in a minute, but Bessie started screeching and hollering all over again. “You cowards killed a dying old lady. If you are men, take those rags off and show your faces.”

  The men put their guns back in their holsters and backed their horses into a little bunch, and looked at each other to find out what to do next. I couldn’t understand how Murphy was still alive after Doc had taken a shot at him.

  Doc walked through the yard as if he had all the time in the world. “Throw down your guns and give yourselves up before you get in more trouble. A federal marshal is on his way,” he said, quiet like, and to no one in particular.

  Sheriff Brewer, with his big silver badge and two Colt pistols on his belt, rode his horse into the yard, dragging two people at the end of a rope. They tottered and staggered like they were all tuckered out and could hardly stand. The man, or what looked like a man, was wearing farmer’s overalls. The boy had on a torn shirt and raggedy pants. The man had long black hair and a red, swollen face. I looked again. It wasn’t no man, but a woman.

  “I’m the law here,” the sheriff said, looking at Doc. “You got more to worry from a federal marshal than any man here.”

  Bessie stopped screeching and went toward the sheriff. “Who ar
e those people?”

  “They’s runaways, wanted by the law.”

  “Them’s the folks we hidden in the woods. Dey’s a woman and a boy from N’Orleans, finding their way up north,” Old Isaiah said.

  “They are my prisoners. Every sheriff between here and Louisiana’s been looking for this high yella woman and her brother. There’s a big reward. The woman stole jewelry,” the sheriff said.

  Doc walked toward the prisoners like a man in a dream. He ran the last twenty feet and clutched at the woman. “Odette?”

  When Doc called out that name, the woman swayed and fell to the ground. The sheriff tried to drag her up on her feet with the rope that was looped around his wrist. She struggled but fell back. The rope pulled the boy down on his hands and knees.

  Doc squatted down in the dirt and smoothed the woman’s hair, murmuring, “Odette, Odette.” Then he untied knots that held her hands.

  The sheriff held a pistol on Doc. “I should take you in along with these thieves. Leave the prisoner alone,” he said.

  “This woman has diphtheria,” Doc said in a loud voice.

  The spooks backed their horses out of the clearing and took off like they had business elsewhere. The sheriff yelled after them, “It ain’t so, nothing wrong with the woman.”

  Doc jerked the rope that was looped around the sheriff’s hand and yanked him off the saddle. The lawman fired his pistol but didn’t hit nothing. Doc wrenched the gun out of his hand and Bessie planted a foot on his neck. The sheriff was spitting and cussing and reaching for his other gun while clawing and grabbing at Bessie’s leg. Her dress was all hiked up and when he made a grab for her leg higher up, she whacked him a good lick across the chops. Doc grabbed his hand and bent back his fingers until a bone cracked. That took all the fight out of the sheriff. I got his gun belt and both his pistols.

  Doc took the bullets out of the sheriff’s belt and unloaded the pistols. He gave back the pistols and told the sheriff to get back on his horse and leave. It was all over when Mr. Malone and his troop of vigilantes rode up to the clearing.

  “Where in tarnation have you been?” I asked Billy.

  “It took a while to round up the men and they were slow getting across the river,” Billy said.

  Mr. Malone said the hoof prints were the same as the gang that come to our house and rustled cattle. The committee went off, yipping and yelling, like as if they were Custer’s cavalry.

  The woman, Odette, moaned and cried and didn’t appear to recognize Doc when he carried her into the cabin. Her face was swollen with skeeter bites and briar cuts and she had a high fever.

  “Does she really have diphtheria?” Bessie asked.

  “No, but she is bad sick,” Doc said.

  Old Isaiah walked around rubbing his neck, saying “praise de Lawd.” The darky women were sobbing and carrying on over Miz Trimmer. Bessie took charge of the women and got things moving like she was like a tornado. She had the Negroes light lanterns and put the women to work fixing supper and boiling water. She and Old Isaiah’s wife, a big, round lady, undressed and washed Odette and then the younger ones took turns sponging her fever with cloths wrung out in cold water. When everyone had eaten bacon and cornbread, she took two women up the hill to lay out Miz Trimmer.

  The boy, Odette’s brother, was ten or twelve years old and a little darker than his sister, but no more than any boy who had been out in the sun. It was hard to know exactly because he was covered with skeeter bites and briar scratches. He was scared and didn’t say a word until he had stuffed himself with three plates of food.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Michele.”

  “Ain’t that a Frenchy name?”

  “It’s Creole. The Dubucettes brought our people from Haiti.”

  Old Isaiah had perked up. “Mos’ them Creoles are octoroons, one-eighth African,” he said.

  “Why aren’t they seven-eighths white?” I asked.

  “Thas just the way it is. If’n a person has one drop of African blood, he be African.”

  I had trouble figuring that one out, but there were a whole lot more questions. The boy was too scared to talk, but Doc had given Old Isaiah a drop or two of whiskey that loosened his tongue.

  “I found ‘em in the woods, hiding out from de law. De was walkin’ along de riber. Black folks hep’d ‘em along the old Underground Railway. The lady said she was looking for a doctor who’s been in N’Orleans. Right away, I figured it must be Doc Steele. If’n they woulda kept on goin’, they would a gone right to his house. When deputies came, we hid ‘em in the swamps. She say, when the old colonel died, his white daughter claimed she had stole the family jewels. ‘Cept there wasn’t no diamonds or nothin’ else because the old colonel had sold the jewelry after he lost everything in the war. An old mulatto helped her escape and she came up the river on a boat as far as Alton, then the money ran out. De law been hot on their tracks de whole way. Seems the old colonel was a grand dragon or some such.”

  When Old Isaiah nodded off to sleep, there was still one thing I had to know. Odette moaned and sometimes thrashed about, but mostly lay still. Doc didn’t look much better, but he was awake and kept a finger on her pulse.

  “Doc, is a marshal really coming? Why did the sheriff say you should be worried?”

  Doc stared into the lantern light, like he was seeing a ghost. His eyes went dim and his face, except for the scar, was chalk white.

  “I asked Mr. Birt to call a marshal. There wasn’t no other way to settle this business with the Klan. I didn’t fight in that war so that white men could drive darkies off their land. The sheriff found out I killed a man awhile back.”

  “But you said you never killed a man with that pistol.”

  “I said I never killed a Reb.”

  I stumbled out of the cabin and started walking. Nothin’ made sense. I never could understand Doc. Here he had been jabbering about how bad it was to kill Rebs and Indians, and all the time he’d been running from the law. Then I got to thinking about Miz Trimmer and how the life had gone out of her after I gave the morphine. I must have walked halfway to the river before my legs gave out and I had to sit a spell. There was rustling in the leaves and then oo-oo-hoo-ha like them old Indian spirits. I jumped straight up when there was screeching like a woman being killed and then there was ker-unk, ker-unk and something slithered along the ground. I knew deep down that those sounds weren’t nothing but doves callin’ to one another and a bobcat screeching when he caught a rabbit, and that other noise was a big bullfrog. The trouble was, I didn’t know for sure that those noises were doves and bobcats and bullfrogs. Old Isaiah’s wife was a conjure woman who casted spells and talked to spirits. All those sounds could be spooks and ghosts called back to earth when Miz Trimmer died. I shivered and had a powerful urge to get back to the cabins.

  The Negro women were still carrying on and Doc was sitting up with Odette. I curled up in the buggy seat and didn’t come awake until the night lightened into gray just before dawn. First thing I thought about was going to see Miz Trimmer. Maybe she really hadn’t died, but had gone to sleep and this morning, she would be just fine. Then I heard shuffling and a soft voice.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Old Isaiah whispered to his mules and rubbed their ears. I scratched and yawned and spit and uncurled from the buggy seat. “Mornin’ Isaiah. You talkin’ to them mules?” I asked. “Mr. Tom, these mules, Abe and George are just as smart as most people. You seen how they saved my neck yestidy?” “Yessir, I did,” said I. “Jus’ you nice babies settle down. Ev’rythin’ is just fine. We ain’t got no more worries,” Isaiah said.

  They were docile as could be while he hitched them to the wagon. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. “I’m powerful sorry about what happened yesterday. You must hate us white people something awful for what they did to you,” I said.

  “We don’t hate nobody. There’s been too much hatin’ in this land. There’s good white folks and bad ones too. Most of th
ose fellows yestiddy ain’t that bad, they just being led astray. Young Tom, get a move on. We be burying Miz Trimmer in a little while. She always say, she wants to be planted in the ground next to the Cap’n when the first sunbeams strikes that grove of oaks at the top of her hill,” Isaiah said.

  There weren’t many white folks who would have been so forgiving. It didn’t exactly make me proud of my white skin.

  The Negroes came drifting out of the cabins in their best clothes. Obediah and Zebediah walked stiff and bent over. Even with Doc’s salve, their backs must have hurt something terrible. The littlest children rode the wagon and the rest walked up the road to the big house. The women had wrapped Miz Trimmer in a quilt and put her in a coffin. They had took turns sitting up with her all night. Bessie looked plumb wore out. Obediah and Zebediah carried the coffin down the steps with the women strung out behind.

  “I hep’d the Cap’n make that coffin and his’n too outen an old black walnut tree afore he went off to war. He figured coffins might come in handy someday,” Isaiah said.

  They put the coffin on the wagon next to Old Isaiah’s wife. Then Isaiah got up and rove the mules. The rest of us trudged up the hill to a grove of ancient oak trees. The colored folks broke into the dolefullest song I ever heard. It was the sound of death and darkness that came out of Africa. I couldn’t understand the words, but folks had tears in their eyes. Bessie sobbed quietly and wiped her face. I felt lower than a snake’s belly. The singing got deeper and more mournful, then suddenly stopped, when we got up the hill near the open grave. It was under the branches of a big oak tree and right next to a boulder chiseled with the name of Miz Trimmer’s husband.