by Tom Franklin
For a moment she considered it. She picked it up.
——, said Alice Hanover and unscrolled her smoking fingers.
Thus Evavangeline handed over the only toy she had ever touched.
Alice Hanover held it aloft in her flat palm like someone freeing a dove and let the wind claim it and the girl watched the scrub of doll lift from the gypsy’s fingers into the air and striptease apart a shuck at a time until the lightning stopped and the wind died and the doll lay scattered in places unseen.
Later she lay awake on the ground by the wheel of Alice Hanover’s wagon where she slept each night. She knew the gypsy was above, in the covered buckboard asleep on her ticking with her eyes open, and that she must move quick else the old crone would kill her with a grunt before Evavangeline could draw the blade over that warty throat and unriver its blood. She would never be able to do it, to get in the wagon, sink the knife. The gypsy was too wily. Evavangeline lay like a bruise on the cold skin of the earth, her ear to its dirt, her teeth clenched so tightly she could hear the ocean a hundred miles south, while above her the wagon planks creaked as Alice Hanover endured her slumber.
Evavangeline raised her fingers to the underside of the wagon’s floor but didn’t touch it. She felt the old woman’s heat through the boards. She moved her fingers to the left, to the right. She pointed to a spot and jibbed her knife between the boards and through the old woman’s ticking and her skin. Her onion of a heart. There was a squawk and lightning struck nearby. The knife kicked itself from between the boards and fell to the grass steaming. The wagon pitched and yawed and the night spoke words Evavangeline tried her best not to hear. It rained then snowed. The ground shook. Trees broke in half and fell all around. Worms squirted out of the dirt.
Then everything grew quiet and still. Blood ran between the boards and covered the girl, afraid as she was to come out.
She waited. And waited.
She stayed there hardening in witchblood for three days until hunger like a father’s foot drove her back into the world. And weeks, months, years, later, now and again, with a huffing man driving her across the mattress or the ground, she would whisper two or three of the words of Alice Hanover. ——she would say. —— ——. The man would pause, breath held as the air changed, and say, What in the hell.
Then, because she never recited all the words in their right order, the air would move again and the man would resume his thrusting and she would pinch bloody crescents in the skin of her arm to assure herself that this was real and she was alive and—
You killed him, didn’t you? the dyke said.
She stood backlit in the door holding a pair of boots in one hand and a pistol in the other.
Killed who? Evavangeline asked. She sat up.
My husband, said the dyke. These is his boots.
Evavangeline folded her arms. Well hell Mary, she said. I might jest did. Killed him I meant. What did he look like?
The boots hit the floor. He was a veteran!
Evavangeline leaned forward, her eyes gleaming in the light from the door. Was he also a crow hunter and a raper?
Sometimes! the woman shrieked. When he drank the devil’s whiskey he loved to kill things! And rape them! But if he’s dead and you ain’t gone stay, then I got to feed all these younguns myself!
What about all that cane?
It’s dried out. It’s dead. We lost ever thing. Tate ’ll foreclose on us less we git some money, fast.
Whose children did I see earlier?
My husband rounded em up to sell. He’s supposed to deliver em tomorrow. But that ain’t none of ye business.
The dyke raised her pistol but Evavangeline was already behind her. She kneed her in the kidney and the dyke turned, tearing Evavangeline’s shirt and clawing at her eyes but the girl bit a swatch out of the dyke’s neck and shoved her against a wall and clubbed her with a chamber pot when she bounced back and watched her sink in the corner. She bound and gagged the dyke then put her own clothes and the crow hunter’s boots back on and crept through the house holding the pistol in one hand and an oil lamp in the other. She found the children sleeping on the floor in a room and woke them one by one and waited for them to put on their shoes, the ones who had them, and led them outside past the dyke and through the yard into the root cellar, slapping the oldest boy’s hand from her ass.
Yall stay here, she said to them, till jest fore morning. If ye have to take a piss, use that stew pot yonder. Come first light yall find ye way home.
You a whore? the oldest boy asked. He had the blondest hair.
None ye business, she said. What’s ye name?
William R. McKissick Junior. My daddy was the bailiff over in Old Texas fore Mister E. O. Smonk killed him. I lit out cause I heard it was a woman who took in orphans and would let you screw the girls. The boy cast an evil eye on the children. But so far won’t none of these here ones screw and they ain’t fed us yet. I got me half a mind to git on.
Evavangeline knelt. She took his hard shoulders in her hands and looked in his eyes. She could see he had an erection by the way his pants stood.
If I goose ye one time, she said to him, will ye do something for me?
Ma’am?
If I take care of that there, she said, thumping his britches, will ye then repay me with a promise?
Oh, yessum! he cried.
She led him to a dim recess in the cellar. It smelled like potatoes. The other children followed and watched. She undid his pants and squirted him into the darkness. He made a croaking noise.
Now, ye promise, she said.
He seemed drunk, a sleepy smile, string of drool. Yessum.
From here on, you’ll watch after these here other younguns. Help em get home and don’t let nothing happen to any of em. And don’t try to screw em neither.
But—
Just do like I told you. Get em out of here fore first light.
Yessum, the boy said. Can ye do me that way one more time?
My lord. She reached forward and it was waiting for her, still bouncing from its rapid rise.
7 THE TENANTS
ON SMONK’S TRAIL, MCKISSICK AND GATES HAPPENED UPON A small flat-topped log barn dobbed with straw mortar and cotton, a thin man centered in its door whacking a wagon axle with a hammer. He stopped and rose from his haunches still holding the hammer and stood in the shade watching them walk up on the horse.
This here’s Smonk’s tenant farm, McKissick said. Which would make that feller Smonk’s tenant.
How ye know? asked the blacksmith from behind him on the horse.
Never mind. It’s a few things I know.
You ain’t gone shoot him, are ye?
Not if I don’t have to. Pipe down.
The bailiff halted the horse a dozen paces out from the barn.
The tenant farmer took off his hat and his hair kept the shape of its crown. Evening, he said.
Never mind that, McKissick said. We inquiring about Smonk. Eugene Smonk they call him.
I know of him, sure do, the tenant farmer said. He nodded at the bloody shirt. You want that looked at? Sister yonder’s got the healing gift.
They followed his eyes uphill to a dim shack with a skeletal woman in a slip smudged against the wood like a wraith, her eyes black as snakeholes. A clothesline hung with undergarments stitched down the hillside and several gray guinea hens ran screaming over the grit.
You only pay what ye think ye ought to, the farmer said. Plus the cost of her apothecary bottle, if ye know what I mean. He winked. She’ll do ye, too. For half a dollar. I’m the one ye pay.
Naw, McKissick said. I met a fellow once in a field told me I could go in the house and lay with his two daughters, right in yonder, he said. I paid him and when I went in it was two fellers. I said where’s the girls and they said what girls. I told em I’d paid the feller outside and they said what feller. We looked out the window and that feller was nowheres to be seen. I killed them two when they started laughing at me and then I tracked d
own that other feller and killed him in Bessemer.
Well, that’s about the most I ever heard ye say, said Gates.
McKissick had lowered his eyes. He raised them now. I’m carrying this here gut wound back to the man give it to me. To the man took ever thing of mine. My farm. Land. Took my boy. A hunk of my flesh here. Wife. My very soul.
That sounds like Mister Smonk, all right, said the tenant. He lives two miles yonder ways. The big spread. You’ll know it. He gestured around. He owns all this here land.
Does he own you too? asked the bailiff.
The farmer shrugged.
Say yer woman ’ll do a bit of whoring? Gates asked.
Finest suck ye ever had. I ought to know. The farmer winked again.
Say she’s got a snort too?
Genuine pure corn licker.
Naw, said McKissick. We best attend our chore.
Reckon I could inquire what that is? the tenant said. Ye chore, I mean. Jest curious is all. Lonesome as it gits out here in the woods. Yall sure ye don’t want a suck?
I could use me a suck be honest, said the smith. Wouldn’t mind a snort neither. Reckon that judge would pay?
McKissick peered at Smonk’s tenant. Naw about the suck and naw about the licker and hell naw about asking after our business. One more such question ’ll earn you a bullet or two where they can’t be dug out.
I didn’t mean no offense.
Fools never do. If ye see Smonk, don’t tell him you encountered us. Bout the only thing we got in our favor here is the element of surprise. Without looking at his companion the bailiff said, Give nosy here a pay-off.
Gates balanced his rifle on the horse’s back and reached in his bib pocket and tossed down a rusty nail.
Obliged, the tenant farmer said, picking it up to bite, watching the two men continue along their way, the overloaded mule struggling behind.
How many? Smonk asked from the bed, opening his eye. He’d been resting but knew without being told about their visitors.
From the window, watching the men ride into the sugarcane, Ike flashed two fingers.
Two? Shit. Smonk threw a bloody rag across the room. Shamefulest posse I ever heard of is my own. Two. Of all numbers. One’s my former employee, I speck. Missed his liver. The other one, couldn’t tell ye. Not that judge I guarantee ye that. Maybe some laggard didn’t show up at my event. Smonk drank from his jug and belched and moved his sore foot to a cool spot on the quilt. They coming?
Ike shook his head.
Good. We’ll catch our breath, get em on the flipside. He patted the ticking and the woman came from the shadows and lay beside him like a pool of warm wax and started under the sheet with her hand.
Naw, he said. Rub my damn foot.
Ike picked up an eight gauge doublebarrel shotgun from the corner by the door without looking at what the girl was doing and went to the porch putting on his hat and whistled for the tenant.
The man trudged up the hill. Don’t be whistling at me, he said, sticking out his arm. Last time I checked my skin was still white and yers was still nigger-colored.
Ike looked where the men had gone into the trees, watchful that they might sneak back and spy, which he would of done had he been them. Watch the place a day, day and a half.
They wouldn’t bite, the tenant reported. I said jest what I’s supposed to. But they claim they going after Mister Smonk over his place. Like they knew him. It was two of em. One was gigged.
Well, said Ike. I speck you best git on. He’s evicting ye.
What’s that mean?
Kicking ye out.
A nigger? A dern nigger’s booting us out? He reached into his back pocket and unfolded a Case pocketknife.
One of Ike’s eyebrows spiked and his hand struck the knife from the tenant’s hand and his own razor flashed and slit the farmer’s throat and Ike had wiped it twice on the man’s shirt as if it were a strop and slipped it back into his pocket before the tenant could fathom that today death was the color of a Negro.
It ain’t fair, he squeaked.
Ike stepped aside as he fell. Fair, he said, as if there was such a thing.
Meanwhile, Gates had become addicted to sucking the rust off nails. He had ulcerous spaces between his teeth and he would work the nails softly into his gums, where the rust dissolved. It felt good. Also, he had the shits and every half-mile or so had to be let off to do his business in the trees and then run to catch up with his ride.
Ain’t you a fellow renowned for his sense of humor? he asked. Didn’t somebody tell me that?
McKissick didn’t turn. I was. Once.
Can ye say a dirty joke?
Naw.
Little conversation be nice is all. I can never remember no jokes.
I got me jest one more joke to say in my life, said the bailiff. After I’ve cut Smonk’s thoat or gutted him nuts to neck or shot him in the heart, jest fore he dies, I’m gone show him his selfsame glass eye.
Back up a step, pard, said the blacksmith. You got his eyeball?
McKissick frowned over his shoulder but dislodged it from his jaw and spat it into his palm and displayed it. Maybe it would make the blacksmith hush. The fellow reached forth a finger to touch it but McKissick popped it back in his mouth.
Careful, he said. I ain’t so sure he can’t still see thew it. He looked around them. These is strange times.
I seen stranger, said the blacksmith. Did I ever tell ye about the time I seen a cannonball go right thew a boy? In the War? It left a perfect hole in his gut for a second. We all started laughing, what was left of the regiment, even the man with the hole in his middle, laughing, laughing, laughing. Then he fell dead and we laughed harder. We was falling down laughing. Cannonballs rolling past. We pissed ourselves, one and all, and kept on laughing. Then after a time we got quiet and went hid over behind some burnt-up hay wagons. We was about fourteen year old, I reckon. We couldn’t look one another in the eyes no more. We made a pack right after that to never talk about what had happened. But you know something? I talk about it all the time. I’m surprised I ain’t mentioned it before.
I am too.
Presently they rounded a turn on the road and beheld the Smonk homestead at the end of a long double row of cedars. A former sugarcane plantation, the house was as stately as a hotel and boasted among its oddities a cast iron dome with a spike that reached higher than the trees. Fastened to the spike was a bronze weathervane in the shape of a gamecock. The house had three stories and eleven bedrooms, a billiard parlor and hidden arsenal. In the back there was a statue garden which Smonk let go wild and so the naked people frozen in marble looked as if they were being strangled by vines and ivy. To the left were several outbuildings including a barn and beyond the barn lay an apple orchard and on the other side of the house there was a stone well with a shed covering it and boards over the mouth and stones over the boards. The men glanced at one another. The house seemed deserted, its shutters closed except for one, tapping open and shut in the wind, unkempt ivy lacing the front columns and weeds through the porch. The dome windows were dark and there were perhaps a dozen dead dogs on the porch and others strewn in the yard.
Bad luck had sent an angry red moon which flung the men’s shadows before them on the ground. The bailiff and blacksmith dismounted and crept along the twin rows of cedars leading the horse and mule as insects screamed in the trees and fields. They eased off the cobblestone road with the animals in tow and skirted the house and came in downwind through a scraggle of bitterweed, pausing in the moon shadow of the barn.
You want to rest up inside here a spell? the blacksmith asked.
I speck so, said McKissick. I done got dizzy.
Yeah. Gut wound ’ll do that.
You ever had one?
Naw.
They entered the barn and moved quietly through the darkness among the lumbrous animals, the bailiff tying their mount and beast of burden to a crossbeam near the door. The blacksmith was thirsty so he set aside his weaponry and s
lipped between boards into a stall and squatted next to the cow and rang milk into a bucket by squeezing her udder. When he had his all he offered the bucket to the bailiff.
Naw, said he. I’ll not take nourishment till Smonk’s head is separated from his shoulders.
The blacksmith reached up and grasped the cow’s ear to help him to his feet. He had a milk mustache. It might make ye somewhat less lightheaded, he said.
Don’t worry about the weight of my head. It works fine enough to come up with a plan. Listen, McKissick said, and told how he would sneak up to the manor and break in and try to assassinate Smonk and rescue the boy, if he were still alive. If anybody who wasn’t the bailiff or his son came out of the house, the blacksmith was to use the Winchester rifle to ambush him from the barn.
Gates agreed. But his plan—his secret plan—was to wait until McKissick had killed Smonk and then ambush and kill McKissick. Or even if they didn’t find Smonk, which would of been fine with the blacksmith, he could still prove he killed Smonk by possessing his eye. He imagined showing it to several young girls and how their titties touched his elbow.
Can I see that eyeball agin? he asked.
Hell naw. Jest kill anybody comes out the house. Anybody cept me. Or Willie.
Gates gave a thumbs-up.
McKissick trotted off and left the blacksmith to peer through a crack in the barn wall wondering who Willie was. The bailiff closed the distance to the giant house, such an expert he seemed at skullduggery that even watching him the blacksmith sometimes lost track of the assassin’s position.
As McKissick neared the house one live dog rose from among the dead ones and began to growl and snap. It came tottering down the stairs. It’s got the ray bees, the blacksmith whispered to himself as the dog charged. McKissick dropped to one knee and steadied his pistol arm with the other and shot the dog once in the head and stood to watch its final staggering steps. It fell not five yards from his boots and he replaced the spent cartridge with a fresh one from his new gunbelt and looked back toward the barn.
