Black Water

by Bobby Norman

  The courtroom exploded, and the judge banged the gavel hard one time, stood up, and descended the two steps. The bailiff met him at, and opened, the back door.

  Hub turned to Luther, dumbfounded. “Forty years?” Two guards started for Hub while he grabbed Luther by the collar and screamed in his face. “Forty years? You good f’nothin’, why didn’t you do somethin’?”

  With help from the guards, Luther pried Hub’s hands from his coat. “Dimwiddie gave you the rope, you dumb shit, and you stuck your head in it!”

  The guards helt Hub’s arms and he growled back. “’Cause o’ you, you prissy little bastard, I’m goin’ t’prison!”

  Luther calmly straightened his coat, and then surprised the Hell out o’ Hub and the guards both when he jumped in Hub’s face and spit all over him, yellin’, “Because of you, you backwoods, brain-dead pud-pounder, I lost my first murder trial! We’re even!” Luther Knox, Attorney-At-Law, was the only person present in the courtroom that day who would never, ever brag about bein’ any part o’ the Komes Brothers Murder Trial. He stuffed his paperwork in his briefcase, yanked it off the table, and huffed off while the guards drug Hub away.

  On the way out, Dimwiddie met Luther in the aisle and offered to shake his hand. “Young man,” he said, friendly, “considering what you had t’work with, I believe you did an admirable job.” Then he looked around to see if anybody could hear, “And, I was thinkin’ I might write a book about this, and if it’s all right with you, I might like t’use that bus drivin’ line in it. I’d give you full credit, of course. That was a humdinger.”

  By the time the guards got Hub through a side door to the outside, he was shackled with one set of irons at the wrists and hobbled by ‘nother at the ankles, forcing a stutter-stepped shuffle. Raeleen approached, draggin’ a whining Harvey and Henry behind her, dread granitized on her face. She already knew about the sentence. The verdict had been shouted to the waiting throng outside the courthouse two and a half seconds after bein’ announced.

  “Hub?”

  The guards stopped, allowing time, but Hub said nothin’.

  “Hub, say somethin’,” she pursued.

  “Like what?”

  “Like what’re we gonna do?”

  For a second it looked like he was gonna tell her somethin, but then licked his lips and shook his head. “I can’t tell ya what t’do Raeleen. Looks like yr’on yr’own.”

  Before they could say another word, a haint-like visage pushed through the crowd and, before Hub could do anything, raked the wooden gator head across his left forearm. Lootie’d gripped the tail end of the thing in her right hand and pushed the poison-laden teeth down and into his arm with the left, slicin’ it badly.

  Instantly, the arm felt like it was on fire, and he jerked it to his side. Bits of skin and flesh hung from the thing’s curse-hexed teeth. She dropped the wooden gator head to the ground, pulled one o’ the vials from her bag, popped the cork, and before Raeleen could jump out o’ the way, splattered her in the face with the dirty, fetid, swamp-water concoction. Immediately, her eyes burned and she was temporarily blinded. One o’ the guards put his hands on Lootie’s shoulder, but when she turned that one depthless black eye on him, he let go and backed off.

  Lootie turned to Hub. “You killed my boys!” She rummaged in the bag hung on her shoulder and gestured to Harvey and Henry. “One o’ these days, I’ll collect these two in payment.” She popped the cork off the snake blood vial and flung it across Harvey’s face. He fell to the ground, screamin’ and roilin’ in fiery pain.

  Although she could hardly see, Raeleen tried to step between Lootie and the boys, begging, “No! Please, no! Not my babies.” She bent to pick Harvey up and pull him to safety, but because o’ the depth o’ the gossip-mongering gawkers who’d gathered to watch the guards haul Hub off, she couldn’t push through.

  Lootie twisted the cork off the third and final vial, the boar blood, shoved Raeleen aside, and splashed it across Henry’s face. Now both boys screamed like they were bein’ boiled alive, the black, cursed potion drippin’ from their little faces.

  Lootie pointed to them all. “Th’day th’first dies, y’all die,” then she pointed to Hub, “and th’lowest o’ th’low’ll fight over yer bones.” She reached in the bag one more time and pulled out the knife. The same one ol’ hole-in-his-face-where-a-nose-oughta-been cut taters with. The one Smoke pounded in the back o’ the noseless pig fucker’s head. The one Pearl used to free Lootie from Smoke’s belly. The one the squeaky little voice told her to take with her from Roach’s cabin. Pointin’ it at Hub, she cast her last spell. “My life f’yours.” Never taking the black eye off Hub, she gripped the knife handle with both gnarled hands and placed the tip under her ribcage. Then she deliberately fell on it, burying it in her heart and cracked the front of her head open when she hit face-first in the dirt. In seconds, black blood circled her head like a hellish halo.

  The crowd pushed back like a drop of oil on water, and for ten seconds, the only sounds were of shufflin’ feet, Harvey and Henry squirmin’ on the ground, and Raeleen pleading, “No! Somebody do somethin’! Don’t let ‘er die! Please don’t let ‘er die,” but no one moved. No one spoke.

  Finally, one o’ the guards cautiously knelt beside the inert, emaciated lump and checked the pulse in her neck. He looked up. “She’s dead.” He stood up, wiping his fingers on his pants leg.

  Blood rivered down the toothed grooves on Hub’s arm, over his hand and off the ends of his fingers, puddlin’ beside his left shoe. No one paid any attention to the thickening tributary that inched sluggishly from the pool at the front of Lootie’s head to the one at Hub’s feet.

  It took a dozen law enforcement officials twenty minutes to push the crowd away enough so that one o’ the guards could back his Ford short-bed pickemup to the scene. Sheriff Rowe guided him until the back bumper was about eight feet shy o’ the body. He helt his hand up, and the driver killed the motor and set the brake. He got out and walked to the sheriff and another guard standin’ beside him. They looked at the corpse and then at each other. Rowe gave ’em a look that said we need to get it in the truck.

  The truck’s owner recognized it, stiffened, and shook his head. “Uh-uh. No, sir! I’ll use m’truck. I don’t want to, but I will. But that’s’s far’s I go.”

  Rowe looked at the other guard.

  “I’ll turn in m’badge first, ‘n I ain’t funnin’.”

  Rowe looked around and noticed a couple o’ colored boys, Bob McDonald and Phillipe LaRue, standin’ around lookin’ like do-nothin’, shiftless, lazy-assed niggers. “Hey, boys. I’ll give y’all fifty cents t’load ‘er in th’truck.”

  They sauntered over, and the oldest, Bob, looked at the body and then the Sheriff. “Two dollahs.”

  “Apiece,” Phillipe added.

  “Yeah,” Bob agreed. “Apiece.”

  Rowe didn’t have to think about it much. “Awright, but f’that, you load ‘er up, ride in th’back, ‘n unload ‘er at th’morgue.”

  Bob and Phillipe shared a nod and walked to the body.

  CHAPTER 25

  Sweatin’ like a plow horse in July, Hub bounced and rocked from side to side in the center of a hard metallic seat welded along the driver-side wall of a smallish, dirty, drab-green bus bound for his new home. Angola Penitentiary. The worst rat trap in the whole world. Every bump touched off a searing flame of pain. His arm felt so heavy it was like somethin’ was pullin’ it to the floor. His leg irons snaked through a heavy-duty eyebolt welded to the floor ‘twixt his feet. The guards had passed on the wrist manacles ‘cause of Hub’s mangled arm, cupped in a hastily contrived sling double-knotted around the back of his neck.

  He was leaned for’ard, head hung and eyes scrunched in pain. His right elbow rested on his knee, so the slung left arm could hang between his legs like a hammock. The pain throbbed like a rotten tooth, and even tightly wrapped, the blood-saturated sling leaked and dripped, puddling molasses-like blood on the de
nted and scraped metal floor.

  Besides the driver, there was one-armed guard on the front seat o’ the prisoner section, back to back with the driver, and another all the way in the back, facing the front. Both were as far from Hub as they could get, and neither was very big on conversation. They knew who he was and who Lootie Komes was, and that was all they needed to know. They watched the bloody puddle spread with each drip.

  Halfway to the prison, Hub’s mouth dropped open, his eyes rolled up, he turned to linguini and toppled over head-first to the dirty bus floor. Another smaller puddle started from a new gash over his right eye in the same place he’d been cut when Sheriff Rowe slammed him against the cell wall. The guards looked at him, then at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and shook their heads as if to say “not me.” They’d let somebody else handle it when they got to Angola.

  Hub opened his eyes. Stunned. He didn’t move. Except his eyes. He helt his breath and looked around. Then he closed ’em, squeezed down real hard, rolled his eyeballs around behind the lids like he was cleanin ’em off, and then opened ’em again. It was the same. It was still there.

  He blinked, confused.

  First he’d been in a bus, goin’ to Angola Penitentiary with his arm on fire, and then…he looked at the arm. It was unslung and undamaged. He bent it, wringin’ it around, and straightened it. Nothin’. He slapped it with his other hand. No pain. He was dreaming! Yeah, that was it. That had to be it! But he’d never had a dream that looked this real. Then, just to be sure, he checked the other arm. Nothin’. It wasn’t like he could just forget which arm had about been destroyed and ready to rot off, but the one he thought shoulda been…wasn’t.

  He looked around again. His surroundings were familiar. Very familiar. Too dang familiar. He waited for the skip-jump of a dream, the weird stuff. Flippin’ from one place t’nother. It wasn’t happening, though. It wasn’t a dream. But how could it be real? He was on a bus, goin’ to Angola Penitentiary. He looked around again, wonderin’ where he was and, better yet, how the Hell he got there. It looked so familiar, but….

  Then it hit him—he was dead. Yeah. That was it! He was dead. Died on that God Damn bus! He didn’t hurt anywhere. He didn’t smell smoke or hear anybody screamin’ or beggin’ for ice water, but there wasn’t any other explanation. He was dead. Dead and sittin’ on the edge o’ the front porch o’ the Lusaw family home. The same house where he was raised. But it wasn’t there anymore. That old house wasn’t anywhere anymore. It’d been torn down. Caught fire, burned, gutted, torn down, and hauled off, what was salvageable used on another house or a barn. But there it was. Here it…is.

  “My name’s Hub Lusaw,” he said, out loud. He said it to see if it would sound as strange as his bein’ there. It didn’t. It sounded like him. He was still hangin’ on a little some to the dream idea. It was easier to accept than that he’d died and gone to Hell, toppin’ off his life by killin’ the Komeses.

  “It’s nineteen-twen’y-four ‘n I’m twen’y-five-years old. I’m married ‘n got two younguns. I killed George ‘n Matthew Komes fer killin m’sister. I went t’court ‘n got forty years. I’s on a bus goin’ t’th’pen. I got sick ‘n….”

  And here he was, feelin’ silly, talkin’ to hisself, sittin’ on the front porch o’ the house he’s raised in. The one that burned down when he was sixteen. Yeah, sixteen. And Ret was eleven. His mother and father were both dead. In fact, it was the house burnin’ down that forced him and Ret to move in with an aunt and uncle until he got a regular job and was able to pull in enough for him and Ret to move out on their own.

  He shaded his eyes and looked up. It seemed to be late mornin’, with the bright sun in a clear blue sky. He felt its warmth. The soft breeze pleasantly wafting over his face also rustled the leaves in the trees. He closed his eyes to feel it. Then he heard a scufflin’ and opened his eyes. Just off the porch aways, not ten feet from him, with her back to him, squattin’ barefoot in the dry, dusty yard, with her knobby knees tucked under her chin, was a skinny little six-year-old girl with dirty, black, shoulder-length hair. Now it was startin’ to feel more like a dream. She hadn’t been there two seconds ago. She wasn’t payin’ him any attention, although he had the impression she knew he was there. And even with her back to him, he knew who she was. He’d seen her just like that, hundreds o’ times. But not recently.

  It was Ret. His sister. The dead one.

  Then he reminded hisself again, the dead one. But here she was. And she wasn’t dead. And she wasn’t nineteen.

  He looked all around the porch, left and right. It was then he noticed all the dust. Dust everwhere, like a thin, fuzzy carpet. He looked to his back, at the screen door behind him, and right of that, to the rough-hewn wooden bench that’d always set there, pushed up tight agin the porch wall. To the rusty old coffee can at the end o’ the bench, its bottom rim duned with dust, that his father’d used as an ash and chewin’-t’bacco-spittin’ can. The rusty nail on the edge o’ the steps that’d been hammered over but still stuck up just enough that it’d caught his toe when he was nine and almost tore the dang thing off. He still had the scar.

  It was all there—the thin, worn, faded curtains his mother’d put up just ‘fore she died of female problems; ever board on the porch; ever mark on ever board; the broken, cracked, heavy plank that served as the one step. Everthing, except for all the dust, was exactly the same. Without havin’ to get up, go out back, and look, he imagined the thin cord clothesline would be there, hung between the back o’ the house and the dead tree. The screen door off the kitchen with a notch rubbed into the frame from the spring’s slidin’ back and forth from hundreds o’ thousands of opening’s and slammening’s. The hook/latch with a dark, half-moon stain that looked like the bags under an old man’s eyes, from years o’ swingin’ back and forth. They’d be there, too. He could still hear his father yellin’ “Quit slammin’ that God Damned door” when he or Ret was foolin’ around and runnin’ out of or into the kitchen and forgettin’ to keep it from slammin’ shut.

  His mother and father were dead, so they wouldn’t be there. But Ret was dead, so what was she doin’ there? What was she doin’ here? Maybe his folks were there. Here. Then a shiver run up his spine. If his father was there, here, would he remember that Hub’d killed him? He was ashamed of hisself for feelin’ the same old fear.

  When he looked back, the Ret child wasn’t sittin’ in the dirt any longer. She was perched right beside him, on the porch, hip to hip, gigglin’ and playin’ with a scruffy little black-and-gray-striped kitten layin’ on its back between her pressed legs, playfully grabbin’ and bitin’ at her finger. But now she had to be ten years old. Her dark hair hung below her waist and over her shoulders, framing her face, like it had at that age. He was reminded of all the time she spent brushin’ it out after acquiring the knowledge that she was pretty. She was wearin’ a pair of worn coveralls and was still barefoot, her feet dirty, a big toe stubbed and scabbed. She’d always hated wearin’ shoes. The kitten bit a little too hard and Ret jumped and slapped her hand to her mouth, stifling a giggle. She hadn’t actually giggled out loud—it was just that she looked like she had. Hub took the chance and baby-talked, “Did he bitecha?”

  She hunched up her shoulders like she was fixin’ to get slapped, pinched up her eyebrows like he’d sinned by voicing somethin’ out loud, and pressed her finger to her lips. She looked around, secretively, put her hand on his shoulder, pulled him towards her, and cupped her hand to his ear. He felt her hand at his temple and her lips brush over his ear, and although she seemed to whisper, he didn’t actually hear her say anything. Nevertheless, the message had been conveyed and understood. She wanted him to go into the house. She turned and stuck her dirty little pointin’ finger over her shoulder. He understood she didn’t just want him to go into the house but to go to one specific room, one o’ the two bedrooms. He wanted to ask her why but she just pointed, more forcefully, impatiently, to go. He felt her say, Don’t ask, just go. />
  Nodding to her command, he got up and started for the screen door, then felt her tug on his britches. She helt the kitten to her chest, used his pants leg to help herself up, and crooked her finger, beckoning him down again. When he did, she cupped her hand to his ear and whispered in the same manner as before. He understood he wasn’t to go in the bedroom, but only to peek in the door. When he straightened back up, she winked at him and put her finger to her lips, reminding him he must be quiet.

  She back-handed a wave to the door like she was shooin’ gnats, hefted the kitten to her neck, and stepped back for the edge o’ the porch. He pulled the screen door open, and the spring squeaked. He looked to her, expecting to see her finger pressed to her lip again. But it wasn’t. She wasn’t there. He looked down at the steps and noticed the mussed circle his butt’d made in the dust on the porch’s edge, and his footsteps to the door. But there was only the one set. The little girl, and any sign of her, had vanished. He eased the door closed, walked back to the edge o’ the porch, and looked around the yard, but she was nowhere to be seen. He stepped off the porch, crossed the yard to the left o’ the house, and looked around the side. She wasn’t there so he crossed back to the right side. Not there, either.

  She’d told him to go in the house, to his old bedroom, and peek in, so he went back to the door, opened it, and stepped into the front room. He allowed the door to close behind him and took the time for his eyes to adjust before he went any futher. He looked around and, other’n all the dust, it was perfect. The same Spartan furniture, same old pictures on the otherwise bare walls, same old worn-out rugs on the floor. Everthing as he’d known it as a child and young man. It even smelled the same.

  The house’s construction was simple, a rectangle. The combination front room and dining ran the full length. There was a fireplace at the far left front room wall. The right third was the dining area. One got into the kitchen from there. The two bedrooms were to the left o’ the kitchen; the one at the far left was his parents’, and the one he’d shared with Ret was between it and the kitchen. Both bedroom doors were closed. Before trying the door, he crossed the front room and to the right, entertaining the thought of possibly finding his mother or father in the kitchen, drinkin’ coffee.