Smonk

by Tom Franklin

  Can I git a ration of bullets?

  Hell naw.

  A mile away they found the singed, shaken horse in a copse of ashen trees and McKissick spoke gentle words into its ear and within minutes he’d mounted up and helped his partner on and they rode west, behind them the crackle of fire and pop of wood. If the wind shifted it might overtake them but it looked as if a fire had burned through here already. Land so desolate, the old song went, that people used to have babies just for the food. McKissick’s skin was scorched and blistered and tatters of clothing still clung to raw patches on his arms and legs. Except for the blacksmith’s shoes and a crude loin cloth fashioned from a bandanna, he was naked. Gates was barefoot with his pants rolled halfway up his calves.

  Presently they came upon the pack mule which had leapt in a dry pond bed and rolled in the dust to douse its fiery burden. While the fireworks had exploded and the other goods were smashed or scattered hither and yon, the animal itself was usable and the blacksmith accepted the reins and hoisted himself on without a saddle. The mule seemed eager to get the hell away which improved their pace. Stuck to the mule’s mottled hair Gates found a small package wrapped in brown paper which he tossed to McKissick.

  Willie, he said.

  As all the balloon needed now was the boy’s sweet breath to fill it, it could have been the bailiff’s heart.

  8 THE REDEEMER

  BEFORE DAWN, ON THE LORD’S DAY, MRS. TATE CRIMPED DEAD Elmer’s pants cuffs the way she preferred them worn and smoothed the pants at the knobs of his knees and folded his hands which slid back as before. She returned with twine and tied the buttonholes together.

  She shooed a fly. She puffed the shoulders of his Sunday coat and wondered should she have dressed him in his postmaster outfit instead. She returned from upstairs with his lucky handkerchief (which he’d forgotten the day of the trial) and tucked it into his pocket, the irony not lost on her. With her flyswatter she pursued and killed flies for the better part of half an hour, all the while talking to him, accusing him of never being a believer. It was the most important thing in my life, she said. My faith. And how could the man who used my own bed not cherish that.

  I cherished it, he would have lied.

  You cherished cherishing those girls, she told him.

  He said nothing. He had a towel over his face. She plucked a string of her own hair from his sleeve.

  In times, she said, when God’s burden weighs us down, in His mercy He gives us leave. Such was the leave He allowed Lot’s daughters who plied their father with drink and went in and laid with him to preserve their line. And Lot without guilt. Fat, blind, drunk, happy. His shamed daughters going into his cave. The eldest first. Mrs. Tate popped a fly out of the air. Men are so simple, she said. Get them drunk, satisfy them, and they sleep. It’s the women who lie awake.

  From outside she heard a gunshot. She went to the window and lowered her veil and peered into the night. The guard came trotting up and shrugged. Her gun had gone off again. Mrs. Tate let the drapes fall and raised her veil. She returned to her husband’s side and took his hand and told him she was sorry about last Friday. How she’d been cold to him when it was his turn to go see that young Hester Hobbs. You appeared properly burdened by it, she said. Didn’t even seem excited to go which is all I or any of us could ask for. Her so young, so pretty, and our need so necessary. And you not even eager to get out of the house. Pretending so well. And I was cold to you. Because I knew you wanted to go. You asked me to bring you a cup of water and I got the water and set it down so hard it spilled. Go, I said. Just go.

  She looked at his shoulders and swatted a fly dead. And off you went. Walking slowly at first. I watched you out the window as your steps got faster and faster and you were almost running you wanted to get away from here so bad. Away from me.

  She adjusted the cloth over his face and fluffed his handkerchief. Men are so simple, she said.

  On the Lord’s Day, the Christian Deputies rested. Walton ordered his men to do very little about their camp other than pray and meditate or use their magnifying glasses to practice reading their tiny Bibles. He saluted the troops in their studious poses and retired to his tent and fastened the ties and attached his mosquito netting and removed his boots and polished them to spec and then reclined on his collapsible cot to pray. He fell instantly asleep and like a succubus from a fever dream the whore-child Evavangeline assembled herself from the air and sans pants climbed upon his chest like a degenerate muse and attached her steaming vulva to his neck. The dream was so real he had an emission and woke with a yelp, fumbling for a handheld pierglass so he might check his neck for “hickey” marks.

  Mister Walton?

  Deputy Ambrose. From outside.

  Walton cleaned himself and donned his pants and hurried out, becoming entangled in the mosquito netting in the process and holding his boots. I thought I gave orders, he said.

  Ambrose nodded toward the south. When Walton didn’t seem to understand he pointed.

  Stepping into his boots, left, then right, Walton followed his lieutenant’s ebony finger over a series of fields and beheld a vista of distant, blue trees.

  Lovely, Walton said. Indeed. What poultice to my chapped soul is Thy handiwork, Lord.

  Not the scenery. Ambrose handed the leader a telescope. Look thew this.

  He saw two deputies in full uniform and with all their equipment, creeping through the sugarcane toward the trees, leading their horses.

  Deserters, he said.

  Ambrose straightened his posture. You want me to git em?

  Please.

  There ye go, boss. It’s about time. The Negro drew his rifle from its sheath and levered a cartridge into the chamber and half-cocked the hammer and took off his boots and left his hat spinning on his pommel and vanished into the cane. Walton located the deserters with the scope and tried to find Ambrose in among the “bamboo-like” plants. But his lieutenant’s stealth did the deputy proud and Walton thought he’d give the Negro a commendation upon his return. Yes. A spot of incentive to soothe good “ole” Ambrose, grumpy as he’d been of late.

  A gunshot startled Walton from his revery. He searched the field and landed his glass upon Deputy Ambrose bursting from the cane leaves. Behind his rifle, Ambrose approached one of the deserters who raised his hands in surrender and began to backpedal and beg. Excellent, Walton thought. He would order that deserter horsewhipped, by gum. That would put the fear of God into any future deserter, wouldn’t it?

  Now Deputy Ambrose had the barrel of his rifle in the second deserter’s mouth. Quite effective. Measured savagery indeed a crucial ingredient of God’s most contradictory design, Man.

  Then Deputy Ambrose fired. The deserter’s head burst open at its crown, the stump of its neck smoking. Ambrose shot again.

  My Lord! Walton cried, nearly dropping his telescope, but its shivering globe next revealed Ambrose pursuing the second deserter, already shot once and attempting to crawl off in a piteous manner. The dark deputy approached the fellow from the rear in sideways dancy steps and put two bullets in the back of his head.

  You ought to kill that crazy nigger, Loon said, peering through his own telescope. Fore he shoots the rest of us.

  Negro, said Walton.

  On the Lord’s Day Evavangeline rode the speckle-legged pony from the orphanage north. Ranging east, for a few hours, then back due north. Her gut pulling her clear as gravity. She was aware that the boy from the orphanage had broken his promise about looking after the other younguns and was following her on foot. A couple of times she heard him and once glimpsed his face peering from around the trunk of a tree like a coon. She would urge the pony to a run so they could ditch the boy, but each time, within an hour after slowing down, she perceived the horny little dickens still back there, tailing her.

  She thought it was cute.

  Presently she began to hear a dog barking far in front of her. It relieved her in a way she didn’t know needed relieving—she’d been aware o
f something lately and that something was Where were the dogs? Normally they were everywhere, two or three following her, trying to rut on her leg. But it had been weeks since she’d seen a live dog. Back in Shreveport? Anxious now for this one, she wiggled her hips and the pony clopped to a run over the dry earth.

  Closer she got she realized the dog was in an ill temper. She swung down off the pony for she’d sensed a man too somewhere about and so she left the pony feeding on crabgrass and stepped inside the trees off the path she’d been following and walked hidden that way toward what sounded like a dogfight.

  Suddenly it was a fellow behind her, a gun barrel between her shoulders. A quick hand snatched her own firearms and pushed her along. She was impressed at the economy. Not many could get the drop on her.

  Don’t look back back back, he said.

  She didn’t and he prodded her along his barrel. She tried whistling, hoping the pony would hear and come help, but he kicked her in the seat of her pants. Hesh, he said. Next sound I’ll bop ye in yer brain brain brainpan.

  He’d faded a few steps back, too far behind to be jumped, and the cagey bastard had maneuvered them back to the path so there were fewer trees she could try to scale. For the time being, she gave up and tried to sense out his leaning, boy or girl, to see would that give her an angle.

  They came presently to a decrepit woodshed wrapped in chains, the door banging and rattling from inside as the dog clawed and scratched and headbutted the wood.

  Tell me ye name name, said the stranger behind her.

  She told him.

  That’s a perty name perty name perty name perty name. You a whore?

  Naw.

  Are too. I can see the way ye walk. Wiggling wiggling wiggling like a little whore’s ass, whore’s ass.

  The dog was growling and scratching the door. The gun barrel touched her spine, urging her forward. This here savage one is Lazarus the Redeemer the Redeemer the Redeemer, he said.

  It’s a damn mad-dog ain’t it.

  He’s my good boy. Behind her, her captor sighed out a breath of air. But I didn’t say ye could talk did I say did I say did I say did I say?

  He hit her in the head with his rifle-stock and the woods exploded white before they faded to nothing.

  Walton would have run all the way to the scene of violence had not Donny trotted up behind him and pushed his nose in the ticklish spot between the northerner’s shoulders. Thus aback his steed, the head deputy closed the distance quickly and came upon Deputy Ambrose where he was kneeling at the corpses relieving them of their possessions.

  What, yelled Walton, in the name of God are you doing?

  The Negro paused in rolling one of the dead men’s socks down over his calves and regarded Walton. This my stuff now, he said. I killed these ones and now I get they stuff.

  Walton folded his arms to hide his trembling hands. Hardly, he said. Do you know what a “rig” like this costs, Deputy Ambrose? Do you know who pays that cost?

  Ye momma.

  Well. Yes, technically. But as her agent, I claim all these men’s effects for the Christian Deputies, myself commander. Into the company store, so to speak.

  Don’t be so-to-speaking to me.

  Poor grammar fails to augment your arguments, Walton said. Now, continue to gather the equipment and we’ll inventory it later, what do you say? I was thinking of giving you a commendation for your stealth.

  You, Ambrose said, are the biggest fool I ever seen.

  Pardon?

  I said “fool.” F-U-L. Big one. Big fool. He stretched out his arms, a sock in each hand.

  Why, that’s insubordination. Walton stabbed his pockets for a pencil, his cheeks stinging and his lungs light. I could have your badge!

  My fucking badge? The Negro snatched it from his crimson shirt and threw it in the dust and stamped on it. Fuck my fucking badge, he said. He stamped it again. You know what I’m gone do? I’m gone teach a lesson now. He mimicked Walton in a prissy fashion, writing at his chalkboard. I call it “How to Rob Two Dead Deserting Fuckers of All They Fucking Possessions and Then Cut Off They Tallywhackers and Stick Um in They Mouth Cause That How the Indians Do It So If Anybody Come Along They Gone Think It Was the Savages Done It.”

  I see, Walton said.

  He watched Ambrose pull one man’s pants down over his hips and, a precise motion of his beltknife, slice off his member and place it without ceremony in its owner’s mouth. He did the same to the second dead deputy. Then Walton watched the Negro not speak respectful words over the bodies and, arms full of “booty,” languidly pursue his horse across the field and charm it calm and gather its reins.

  Frozen at the site, Walton clutched his hat and quoted a few apt verses of Scripture to usher the dead men wherever their journey next took them. The leader then prodded Donny with gentle heels and followed his distant second-in-command whose silhouette now rode back toward the last two deputies, Loon and Onan, and soon the four of them rode together at a fair clip without speaking a word. Deputy Ambrose whistling and practicing with his sword, lopping off the tops of small trees.

  The man had walloped the whore-lady in the back of her head, William R. McKissick Junior witnessed it from the bushes. He watched the walloper squat with his rifle and regard her a while, the whole time that dang dog trying to eat the door off. The man rose and William R. McKissick Junior saw that he was tall and wore overalls tucked into his boots and had no shirt on underneath the straps. There was a red kerchief around his neck and every patch of his skin the boy could see was covered with freckles. He’d never seen such a speckled man before, but this one was going through Evavangeline’s pockets and touching her in all the secret places that William R. McKissick Junior wished he were touching. He’d best kill that man. He held the Mississippi Gambler by its blade tip and closed his eye and judged the distance and flung the knife.

  It flew behind the man as he stepped over the prone girl and slashed into the brush. The freckled man, busy with his prisoner, set his rifle against the shed and took a forked stick and went to the door where the dog was still making its racket.

  Shet up! he bellowed. Ye got-damn cannon mouth cannon mouth cannon mouth. He kicked the door which quieted the dog.

  Then it was back, more savage still.

  Creeping through the foliage, William R. McKissick Junior saw the man use the stick to unlatch a small trapdoor in the center of the larger door. He saw him throw down his stick and fling sweat from his fingers. When he lifted the girl her eyes were fluttering. The man tussled Evavangeline forward in his arms as if they were dancing, her feet off the ground, intending to job her arm in where the mad-dog was. Without a thought he was running from behind the shed out into the dappled light, falling on his hands once and getting back up. The speckled man had stuck Evavangeline’s forearm in the hole but when he saw William R. McKissick Junior he dropped her and scrambled for the rifle and she fell, withdrawing her arm. William R. McKissick Junior grabbed the rifle but couldn’t make it shoot before the man was on him. The man raised him up in the air by his collar and looked him in the face a moment then underhanded him into the shed wall where the boy slid to the ground and moved his elbow a second before the mad-dog’s snout left frothy drool peeling down the wood. He cocked the rifle and aimed down the barrel where the boy lay scowling.

  Then an idea seemed to dawn upon the man’s long face. He resembled a horse, his lips bore a perpetual pucker of protruding yellow teeth which made him seem to be smiling. Scabs of beard dotted here and there among the freckles. He came forward leering behind the gun and grabbed the boy’s foot.

  I’m gone sell ye, ain’t I, he said. Get a get a get a get a real good price.

  He backed toward the whore dragging the boy and didn’t see that she’d opened her eyes. The forked stick was within her grasp and her fingers closed around it. The speckled man was bent over, looping a rope over that boy from the orphanage. Her sodden brain couldn’t call up his name but she pushed off the ground and held the st
ick in both hands and swung hard and whacked him a good one across the base of his skull and using the momentum of her first swing swung again as he turned to face her and this time she hit him hard across his mouth and burst his lips and nose. Then fell herself.

  The boy helped her to her feet, staring at her breasts, their nipples targets in her thin sweaty shirt.

  Thank ye, she said, holding her head in her hands.

  He pulled the bloody hairs off the stick and offered it to her for a crutch.

  Thank ye. He conked me a good one.

  The boy kicked dirt on the downed man. I’d call ye even now.

  Is he dead?

  As if in answer, the speckled man stirred. The two youngsters looked at him and then at each other and then at the shed door which had never ceased its rattle. It took them both to drag him to the door and push him up against its side and prop him there as he muttered and jerked and tried to wake up. They pushed his arm in the hole and fled as he hung, hooked by his own armpit, and the dog had its way. From the safety of the woods Evavangeline and the boy watched him come to his senses. He snatched out his arm which had been gnawed to a bloody stob. He glared at the woods, seeking them, then tore his handkerchief off his neck and did a rough onehanded job of bandaging his elbow.

  Evavangeline knelt and squinted so she could see in the boy’s blue eyes. Her vision was blurry, there seemed to be two of him. She blinked and tried to focus. What did ye say yer name is agin?

  William R. McKissick Junior.

  Well, Junior. Where’s them younguns you promised to look after?

  He pointed behind her.

  There they were, three boys and the same number of girls. They were filthy and gaunt and hollow-eyed and holding hands. She might of gotten angry except it was then she noticed the dog-bite on her elbow.

  9 THE EYE