Mudbound

by Hillary Jordan

The wet sack on my head smelled like coffee, I reckoned they got it at Tricklebank’s. They must’ve met up there before they set out to find me. That gave me a little hope. If Mrs. Tricklebank had been there and heard them talking she would’ve called Sheriff Tacker as soon as they left. He wasn’t no great friend to Negroes but surely he wouldn’t stand by and let one of us be lynched. Surely he wouldn’t.

  “Listen,” I said, “I’ll leave town.”

  “Shut up, nigger,” said the man I thought was Turpin.

  “I’ll leave tonight, and I won’t ever—”

  “He said, shut up,” snarled the man on my other side.

  Something hard slammed into my ribs and all the breath went out of me. The pain was fierce, felt like some of my ribs were cracked. I kept quiet after that and so did they. Somebody lit a cigarette. I’d never been much of a smoker but when my nose caught the smell of it I wanted one bad. Funny how the body keeps right on wanting what it wants even when it thinks it’s about to die.

  The car made a turn and the ride got rough, I figured we’d gone off the road. A couple minutes later we stopped. They jerked me out of the car and marched me a ways into a building. The rain on the roof sounded like a thousand people clapping, cheering them on. I was shoved to my knees and I felt a rope go around my neck. They tightened it, not quite enough to choke me but one more hard tug and it would. It was hot under the sack and hard to breathe. Sweat and coffee stung my eyes and the burlap was itching my face. How long did it take to choke to death? If I was lucky my neck would break and I’d go quick, but if it didn’t . . . I felt panic take ahold of me and I fought it down, slowing my breathing like they’d taught us in survival training. I would keep calm and wait for a chance to escape. And if I couldn’t, if they meant to kill me, I’d show these fuckers how a man died. I was an NCO of the 761st Tank Battalion, a Black Panther. I wouldn’t let them turn me into a scared nigger.

  One of them Jerked the sack off my head. At first all I seen was legs but then they stepped back some and I realized where I was: the old sawmill, where I’d spent so many nights drinking whiskey with Jamie McAllan. Seven or eight men stood in a circle around me. Most of them were just wearing white pillowcases but two of them had on real Klan robes with pointed hoods and round badges on the chest. The badges had square black crosses on them with red dots in the middle like drops of blood. I looked up to where the rope was slung over a beam, then followed it down to the hands of one of the men in robes. He was tall, maybe six foot five, and built like a bear. Had to be Orris Stokes, he was the biggest fellow in town. I’d helped his pregnant wife carry her groceries home from Tricklebank’s one time.

  “Do you know why you’re here, nigger?” he said.

  “No sir, Mr. Stokes.”

  He handed the rope to one of the others, then reached out with one of his huge arms and backhanded me. My head snapped back and I felt one of my teeth come loose.

  “You say that name again or any other name and we’ll make you even sorrier than you’re already gonna be, hear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The other man in Klan robes stepped forward. It was Doc Turpin, I was sure of it now. I could see his paunch pushing his robe out and his little beer-colored eyes glinting through the holes in his hood. It was plain he and Stokes were in charge.

  “Bring forth the evidence,” Turpin said.

  One of the others held something out to him. Soon as I seen that old yellow hand I knew what had to be in it. Turpin took the letter and the photograph from Old Man McAllan and held them up in front of my face. Resl and Franz smiled out at me. I wished I could climb into that picture with them, into that other world.

  “Did you rut with this woman?” Turpin asked.

  I didn’t answer, even though he had the letter right there in his hand. There were worse things they could do to me than hang me.

  “We know you did it, nigger,” said McAllan. “We just want to hear you say it.”

  Another one jerked on the rope and the noose dug into my windpipe. “Go on, say it!” he ordered. His voice was deep and raspy from chain-smoking. No doubt who that was: Dex Deweese, the owner of the town diner.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes, what?” said Turpin.

  “Yes, I . . . was with her.”

  “You defiled a white woman. Say it.”

  I shook my head. Stokes hit me again, this time with his fist, knocking the tooth he’d loosened earlier out of its socket. I spat it out onto the floor.

  “I defiled a white woman.”

  “How many times did you fuck her?” said Turpin.

  I shook my head again. Truth was, I had fucked Resl at first. I’d taken what she offered thinking of nothing but my own pleasure, knowing I’d soon be moving on to another post. When had it gotten to be more than that? I closed my eyes, trying to remember, trying to smell her scent. But all I could smell was my own sweat and their hate. The animal stench of it filled the room.

  Deweese gave the rope a hard yank and I gagged.

  “Answer him, nigger!” said old man McAllan.

  “I don’t know,” I choked out.

  Turpin waved the photo in the air. “Enough times to get her with this—I won’t call it a child—this . . . abomination! A foul pollution of the white race!” The men shifted and muttered. Turpin was working them up good. “And what’s the penalty for abomination?”

  “Death!” shouted Stokes.

  “I say we geld him,” one of them said.

  The fear that took ahold of me then was like nothing I ever felt in my whole life. My guts were churning and it was all I could do not to shit myself.

  Turpin said, “And if a woman approach any beast and lie down with it, thou shalt kill the woman and the beast. They shall surely be put to death, and their blood shall be upon them.”

  “String him up,” said Old Man McAllan.

  Right then the door banged open and we all turned toward it. Jamie McAllan stood there dripping water all over the floor. He had a pistol in his hand and it was pointed at Deweese.

  “Let go of the rope,” Jamie said.

  JAMIE

  “LET IT GO,” I said.

  One of the others moved, a shotgun in his hands, rising. I pointed the pistol at him. “Drop it!” I said.

  He hesitated. For a few seconds everybody froze. Then my father spoke up. “He’s bluffing,” said Pappy, “and he’s half-drunk besides. Point the gun at the nigger. Go on, he won’t shoot you. My son don’t have the balls to kill a man up close.” He stepped in front of the man with the shotgun, blocking my aim. I found myself staring down the sight of the pistol into my father’s pale eyes, framed in white cotton. “Do you, son?” he said.

  Behind him I could see the barrel of the shotgun, now pointed at Ronsel’s head. Pappy took a step toward me, then another. There was a roaring in my ears, and the hand holding the pistol was shaking. I put my other hand under the butt to steady it.

  “Stop right there,” I said.

  He took another step toward me. “You gonna betray your own blood over a nigger?”

  “Don’t come any closer. I’m warning you.”

  “Kill me, and the jig still dies.”

  Hate rose up in me—for him, for myself. I’d lost, and we both knew it. I only had one play left to make. “If you kill him, you better kill me too,” I said. “Because if Ronsel dies, I’m going straight to the sheriff. I swear I’ll do it.”

  “What are you gonna tell him, boy?” said the fat one in Klan robes. “You can’t identify nary one of us, except for your father.”

  Without taking my eyes off Pappy, I said, “You know, Doc, white’s not your color. Makes you look a little hefty. Now Dex here can wear it because he’s so skinny, and Orris, well, he’s gonna look big no matter what he has on. But if I were you, Doc, I’d stick to brown and black.”

  “Shit,” said Deweese.

  “Shut up,” said Stokes. “He can’t prove nothing.”

  “And I don’t want to,�
�� I said. “I’m leaving here in a few days. Just let Ronsel go, and he’ll leave town and I’ll leave town and neither one of us will ever say a word about this to anybody. Isn’t that right, Ronsel?”

  He nodded frantically.

  “Let go of the rope, Dex,” I said. “Come on now, just let it go.”

  It might have worked. Ronsel Jackson and I might have walked out of there, if my father hadn’t laughed. I’d always hated his laugh. Harsh and pitiless as the cawing of a crow, it broke the spell I’d been trying to weave. Stokes and one of the others rushed me. I could have shot one of them, but I hesitated. They barreled into me and we crashed to the floor. Stokes punched me in the face. My arms were wrenched behind me, and somebody kicked me in the stomach. At some point I lost the gun.

  “Nigger lover!” Turpin shouted. “Judas!”

  The punches and kicks were coming from all sides now. I could hear Pappy yelling, “Stop it! That’s enough!”

  Finally a boot connected with the back of my head, and that was all. Goodnight, Pappy. Goodnight, Ronsel. Goodnight.

  HAP

  “PLEASE JESUS,” I SAID, “shepherd Your son Ronsel, keep him from harm and light his way home to us.” I was praying loud on account of the storm, hollering at the Lord like He couldn’t a heard me elseways. So when we heard that knocking we all just about jumped out of our skins, all of us cept for Florence. It was like she’d been waiting for it to come. She didn’t even open her eyes, just kept right on praying. But when I got up to answer the door she grabbed ahold of my leg and held onto it so tight I couldn’t move.

  “Don’t answer it,” she said.

  I could feel her shivering against me, quaking like a spent mule. I’d never seen my wife brung so low and afraid, not in all the years we’d been married. It hurt my heart to see that. Lilly May let into crying and the twins was hugging themselves, rocking back and forth on their knees.

  “Come on now,” I said. “Ain’t the time for weakness now. We got to be strong.”

  The knocking come again, harder this time, and Florence let go of me. Ruel and Marlon gave each other a look like twins do when they talking without words, then they helped their mother to her feet and stood on either side of her. Drew themselves up tall, like men, and put their arms around her and Lilly May.

  I went and opened the door. There was a fellow standing on the porch, I couldn’t tell who it was at first on account of his head was bent, but then he looked up and I seen it was Sheriff Tacker and I thought, He’s dead. My boy is dead.

  “I’ve got bad news, Hap,” the sheriff said. “It’s about Ronsel.” He looked behind me to where Florence and the children were standing. “You better step outside with me,” he said.

  “No,” Florence said. “Whatever you got to say, you say it to all of us.”

  The sheriff shifted on his feet and looked down at the hat in his hands. “Seems your son ran afoul of an angry bunch of men tonight. He’s alive, but he’s hurt bad. They were pretty riled.”

  “Where is he?” I said.

  “How bad?” Florence said.

  He answered me and not her. “My deputy’s taken him to the doctor in Belzoni. I’ll drive you there now if you want.”

  Florence came over and stood beside me. She took ahold of my hand and gripped it hard. “How bad?” she asked the sheriff again.

  He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “We found this laying on the ground next to him.” Sheriff Tacker handed it to me. It was a letter and it had blood all over it, at first I thought it was just spilled on there but then I turned it sideways and seen the word and the numbers written in it, Ezekiel 7:4, written in blood by somebody’s finger.

  “What does it say?” Florence asked me.

  But I couldn’t answer her, fear had closed up my throat like a noose.

  “Apparently your son was having relations with a white woman,” the sheriff said.

  “What? What white woman?” Florence said.

  “Some German gal. That letter’s from her, telling him he’s the father of her son.”

  “It ain’t true,” Florence said. “Ronsel wouldn’t do that.”

  I didn’t want to believe it either but it was right there on the paper, I could read it through the blood. You have a son, it said. Franz Ronsel.

  “ Says there’s a photograph with it but we didn’t find it,” the sheriff said.

  “What did they do to him?” Florence said. I couldn’t feel my hand, she was squeezing it so hard.

  “They could’ve hanged him,” the sheriff said. “He’s lucky to be alive.”

  “You tell me what they done,” Florence said.

  And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Ezekiel 7:4.

  “They cut out his tongue,” the sheriff said.

  FLORENCE

  MY SON’S TONGUE.

  “Dear God,” Hap said. “Dear God, how can this be true?”

  They cut out his tongue.

  “They could’ve hanged him,” the sheriff said again.

  They.

  “Who did it?” I said.

  “We don’t know. They were gone by the time we got there,” he said. He was lying though, a five-year-old could a told that.

  “Where?” I said.

  “The old sawmill.”

  I knowed right then who was behind this business. “How’d you know to go looking for him there in the first place?” I said.

  “We got a tip there might be trouble,” the sheriff said.

  “Who from?”

  “That ain’t important. What matters is, your boy’s alive and he’s on his way to the doctor. If you want to get to him, we need to leave now.”

  “Why’d you send him all the way to Belzoni? Why not take him to Doc Turpin in town?”

  The sheriff’s eyes slid away from mine, and I knowed something else too. “He was one of em, wasn’t he?” I said. “Who else was there besides him and Ole Man McAllan?”

  The sheriff’s face hardened up and his eyes got squinty. “Now you listen to me,” he said. “I understand you’re mighty upset, but you got no call to be pointing fingers at Doc Turpin or anybody else. If I was you, I’d be more careful what I said.”

  “Or what? You gone cut my tongue out?”

  His Adam’s apple gave a jerk. I stared him down. He was a scrawny little fellow, no more meat on him than a starving quail. I could a snapped his neck in about two seconds.

  “You’re lucky we followed up on that tip,” he said. “Lucky we found him before he bled to death.” His face was like a child’s, I could see everything in it. His fear of us. His anger at my son for laying hand to a white woman. His disgust at what they done to Ronsel, and his sympathy for the devils who done it. The little bit of shame he felt for covering up for em. His impatience to be done with nigger business and get home to his wife and his supper.

  “Yessuh, sheriff,” I said, “we’re one lucky family.”

  He put on his hat. “I’m leaving now. You want me to take you to Belzoni or not?”

  Hap nodded and said, “Yessuh. My wife’ll come with you.”

  “No, Hap,” I said. “You go. I’ll stay here with the children.”

  “You sure?” he asked, surprised. “Ronsel will be wanting his mother.”

  “It’s better if you go.”

  My husband gave me a stern sharp look and said, “You keep that door locked, now.” Meaning, You just stay put and don’t do nothing foolish.

  And I looked right back at him and said, “Don’t you worry bout us, you just take care of Ronsel.” Meaning, And I’ll take care of what else needs taking care of.

  I would use Hap’s skinning knife. It wasn’t the biggest knife we owned but it had the thinnest blade. I reckoned it would go in the easiest.

  LAURA

  I WOKE TO CURSING and pounding: Pappy’s voice, punctuated by his
fists hitting the front door. “Wake up, goddamnit! Let me in!”

  I’d fallen asleep on the couch. The room was pitch dark; the lantern must have burned out. I’d barred the door earlier, something I seldom did anymore, but after Florence left I’d felt unaccountably afraid. The night had seemed full of terrible possibility waiting to coalesce, to shape itself into monstrous form and come for me. As if a flimsy wooden door and an old two-by-four could have kept it out.

  “Just a minute, I’m coming,” I said.

  Either the old man didn’t hear me or he was enjoying himself too much to stop, because the racket continued while I got the lantern lit and went to the door.

  “About time,” he snapped, when I opened it. “I’ve been standing out here for five minutes.” He pushed past me, tracking mud all over the floor, and looked around the room. “Jamie hasn’t come home yet?”

  “No, unless he’s asleep in the lean-to.”

  “I checked already. He ain’t there.” Pappy’s voice had an edge to it I’d never heard before. He removed his dripping hat, hung it on a peg then went back to the doorway and peered out into the night. “Maybe he missed the place in the dark,” he said. “He was on foot, and you didn’t leave a light on.”

  As they were meant to do, his words let loose a storm of guilt in me. Then their meaning penetrated. “How do you know he was on foot? Did you see him?”

  “He ain’t got a car, that’s how I know,” said Pappy. “So if he left here, he had to been walking.”

  The old man’s back was to me, but I didn’t have to see his yellow teeth to know he was lying through them. “You asked me if he’d come home yet,” I said. “If you haven’t seen him, how’d you know he left in the first place?”

  He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He shook one out, then crumpled the pack in his fist and threw it out onto the porch. “Shit!” he said. “They’re soaking wet.”

  I went to him and gripped his shoulder, turning him toward me. It was the first time I’d touched him on purpose since my wedding day, when I’d given him a dutiful, and obviously unwelcome, kiss on the cheek.