by Vicki Lane
“You still have that old mule?” I ask him, studying him hard to try to make out his age. There are crinkledy lines at the corners of his eyes but not no other age marks. “Still a peddler man?”
“Still a peddler but I sold my mule to an old man who I knew would treat her right and threw in the wagon for goodwill. Now I ride the train and deal in wholesale. But I’ve taken a notion to settle down for a spell—maybe open a department store in Asheville, which is fast growing from a town to a city. After wandering through deserts and rocky places for so long, it’ll be a pleasure to rest my eyes on these green mountains.”
His face has a faraway look. “ ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,’ ” he says and then raises one eyebrow. “Do you know that psalm?”
He asks the question but don’t wait for an answer, just rattles on and me not understanding the half of it.
“It was one of my kin wrote that,” he brags, “but, as you say, it’s been some time.”
Just then a hand lights on my bare shoulder and I like to jump out of my seat. I look up and it is High Sheriff Hudson standing there.
He is a tall, tall man and stout built without being fat. He’s not bad-looking though his face is as wrinkled as an older man’s might be. All the girls dread taking him on, for they say he is bad to be rough in bed. I know it’s true for Sharleen once showed me a great angry red circle where he’d bit her on the breast. He had even broke the skin. And they all complain of how he smells—it ain’t the stink of not bathing enough but something different, like there is something burned out and dead inside of him.
If it was any other of the customers, the boss wouldn’t put up with such, but as it’s the sheriff … well, who’s gone arrest him? Besides, he could close the Stand down any time he took a notion. So the boss pays the girls out of his own pocket whenever they go a bout with Sheriff Hudson—the sheriff never pays for nothing, not a drink nor a dance nor a roll in the hay.
His big old hand lays heavy on my shoulder like a dead thing and I have to stop myself from flinching away. There is a bottle in his other hand and he takes a long pull on it afore saying aught. Then he sets the bottle on the table and wipes his arm across his mouth.
“You back, Aaron? Thought we’d seen the last of you.” The hand begins to creep towards my neck and I shiver—someone walking on my grave, Granny would have called it.
“I got me some red tickets,” the sheriff says, “and I got a mind to cut a rug with the prettiest girl in the place. I reckon you can spare her. Matter of fact, I reckon it might be time for you to move your Jew ass on.”
Sheriff Hudson’s hand is around my neck now. It is so big that the fingers can almost meet. And then the big hand closes and begins to pull me up.
I cast a glance at Mr. Aaron, who lifts his hands as if he was saying there weren’t nothing he could do.
“Miss Redbird, I’ll say goodnight now. Thank you for your company. I’ll redeem my other tickets at some later date.”
We both of us are standing now and the sheriff is pulling me towards the dance floor. I hold out one hand to Mr. Aaron, meaning to say I’m sorry, but he turns away and starts for the door.
It is like dancing with a great huge bear. My arms ache with holding them up so high but I know that I must keep dancing and smiling. And all the while his big old hands is traveling up and down my back, feeling and squeezing, and my face is pushed against his shirt till I know that the buttons will have left their marks.
“Oh, you pretty little thing,” he whispers in my ear, his breath whisky-strong. “I got a mind to arrest you and carry you down to the jail for private questioning. Reckon I best begin by making sure you ain’t packing no hidden weapons.”
And with this he puts his hand right down my dress front and squeezes my titty. I try to pull away but he just yanks me closer and with his other hand brings me tight up against him to where I can feel his pecker hard under his britches.
There has been fellows get frisky with me but not like this. I feel right sure that if I make a fuss, it’s like to rouse him all the more, so I just go on dancing, trying to follow his steps and keep my toes out from under his big old dusty boots.
At last the tune is over and he lets loose of me. The musicianers take a break so as the customers have time to claim a girl for the next dance. Also, now is when a fellow usually offers to buy his partner a drink. He may pay for whisky but what the girl gets is always cold tea out of a special bottle. Everyone knows this but don’t no one ever raise a fuss at paying whisky prices for tea.
Sheriff Hudson don’t offer to escort me to the bar, though I cast a thirsty glance in that direction. He is all worked up and he looks over to the door to upstairs where the boss is setting. Then he grabs my arm and leads me that way.
“Sheriff Hudson!” I cry, hoping to head him off rather than to have him hear a no from the boss. “I don’t go upstairs,” I say. “Everybody knows I just dance.”
He don’t pay me a bit of mind, just keeps hauling me towards the boss and the door to upstairs.
There is a fellow standing there with his arm around Lola. He is dickering with the boss and trying to get credit but he stands aside when he see the sheriff coming.
“Revis,” says the sheriff, not bothering even to speak soft, “I believe I’ll take a turn with Redbird.”
The boss says real cool, “Don’t you still have several of those red tickets I gave you? Price hasn’t changed in the past half hour.” Some of the men standing round start to laugh but break off quick when they see that Sheriff Hudson ain’t even smiling.
He begins to speak real slow, measuring out the words, and I tremble at the anger I can feel in the way he holds me and the way he says, “I ain’t speaking of dancing. I want to go upstairs and I want Redbird here to go with me.”
Chapter 25
The Prize
Gudger’s Stand, 1938
The sheriff’s fingers are digging into my arm and he has one foot on the stairs. I pull back, and when I do, the boss looks a question at me. “Mr. Revis,” I say, my voice sounding little and shaky, “iffen you don’t care, could I talk to you private for a minute?”
He considers, then, “Sheriff Hudson,” he says, “I’ll speak to my employee in my office.” Then he hollers over to the bar, “Cooper, fix up the sheriff with a bottle from my private stock,” and before the sheriff has time to say pea-turkey, the boss has taken me from him and led me back to his room.
He pulls the door to, almost shutting out the sounds of the music starting back up, and as I start to tell him that I don’t want to go with the sheriff, the boss lays a finger on my lips.
“Redbird,” he says, “last week you was ready to go upstairs with that good-looking brakeman off the railroad and I wasn’t for it. It was my thought to save you for something special. Being a virgin,” he looked hard at me like he was warning me not to say nothing, “being, like I say, a virgin, that first time you should fetch a big price—and you’d share half and half in it. Now, what we have here is a dilemma. For as you know, Sheriff Hudson don’t pay for nothing here at the Stand. It’s part of our …” and the boss reaches up to smooth his mustache, the way he does when he’s studying on something, “… part of our arrangement. And he ain’t an easy feller to tell no—”
“Mr. Revis,” I bust right in to what he’s saying, “tell him I’m on my period.”
It ain’t the case but it’ll do till I can think how to get away. For I see now what is in store for me and I know that I don’t want that life, not even for a little while.
The boss nods and winks and steps out the door. I put my ear to it and hear him talking low. The sheriff’s voice is louder but I can’t make out the words except that they are angry. He rumbles along and the boss keeps talking, just as calm. There are other men, drunk by the sound of their voices, but I can’t make out what they say.
Then I hear a woman. “Now, that’s a funny thing. Redbird was on her period two weeks ago, just like all of us. We wa
s laughing about how it is that we all get took that way at once and upstairs business has to shut down. Now if—”
It is that hateful Sharleen. She has fussed, back of this, about me getting special billing and not doing the upstairs work. And then the sheriff breaks in.
“Aye God, Revis, I won’t stand for being put off like this. I don’t care what time of the month it is—if she’s a virgin, like you said, a little more blood won’t matter, now will it?”
There is a bang on the door and the sheriff is standing there. Back behind him there is a ring of folks, just a-gaping, and that black-hearted Sharleen with a nasty smile on her face. The boss looks at me and jerks his thumb for me to come out and I can see he ain’t going to battle with the sheriff no more.
“Redbird,” he says, not quite looking at me, “you staying clear of upstairs has brought these fellers near to a boil. I reckon it’s time you started and you might as well begin with Sheriff Hudson.”
All them men is looking at me like they was hungry dogs and me a plate of meat. I hear muttering amongst some of them and one of the bolder ones speaks up and asks ain’t there gone be an auction, like when it was Lola’s first time.
Now I know that I am in a pickle, for sure. But rather than hang back and let things be decided for me by a bunch of drunken rowdies with their blood up, I step out bold as brass amongst them.
“I’ll go upstairs tonight with the feller who can dance me down,” says I, lifting my chin and giving a slow look round that gang of men. I let my gaze linger a spell on several of the likeliest and give each one a little bit of a smile or a wink. “Will that suit you, Mr. Revis?”
Well, there is a roaring and a hoo-rahing like you never heard, and though the sheriff tries to argue some more, the boss sees that there will be trouble iffen he don’t side with the crowd. He does about the only thing he can and calls for a dance down with me as the prize. Though, he is quick to put in, it will cost two bits to enter.
The sheriff ain’t happy about this turn of events but he tosses back a glass of whisky and moves away. He ain’t one to take part in any contest where they might be a chance he could lose. I see him grab onto Sharleen’s arm and pull her towards the stairs. She sends me another poison look but they ain’t nothing she can do but go on up with him. I would feel sorry for her except for her meanness just now.
But there ain’t time to worry about Sharleen for the boss has gone to talk to the musicianers—likely telling them to step out and take care of the necessary so as to be ready for a long spell of picking and fiddling. Folks is crowded round the bar getting drinks and now the boss is having some to push back the tables and make more room for the contest.
The fellers who are known to be strong dancers are talking big and making bets. I see a few right young men—just boys, really—calculating their chances, their spotty faces all grinning foolish-like. Some are turning out their pockets hoping to find two bits or are asking friends to stake them. Over by the bar a couple of old drunks who can’t hardly stagger are limbering up and doing a few shaky steps. And every one of these is eyeballing me like I was already in the bed with them.
I hold up my hand so’s I can say my piece and, for a wonder, they all hush as I begin to speak.
“Mr. Revis,” I say, lifting my voice so’s he can hear me above the scraping of the chairs and tables being moved, “now, iffen it happens that I outlast all these fine fellers …”
There is a burst of laughing and hooting but I keep my hand up and afore long they settle down.
“I want to get it clear,” I go on. “Iffen I was to win, then there’d be no going upstairs with anyone, not tonight.”
It’s like all them voices come out of one throat and it makes a single sound, a big Awww of disappointment. But then the one voice breaks into many and they all commence to buzz again. I plow right through them, almost hollering to make myself heard.
“And I’ll take part in a dance down every night till I’ve been bested and one of these good-looking fellers has got the prize.” I give a little wink at one of the spotty-faced boys and he jerks his head back and claps his hand to his heart like he’s been shot.
The boss looks at me and nods, then hollers for the musicianers to get started. I take my place in the middle of the floor and those who’ve paid their fee come out too and circle round me and the fiddle lights into “Sally Goodin.”
The slap and thump of boots on the floor is so great you can hardly hear the music to keep in step. But soon I see that it don’t matter; us dancers are marking our own time and it is the driving sound of a great locomotive CHUCK-a-chucka, CHUCK-a-chucka, CHUCK-a-chucka and all of our feet are hitting the floor at the same time till I fear we will crash right through it. We raise a knee-high cloud of dust and the everyday smell of whisky and tobacco begins to be overtaken by the smell of sweating bodies.
At first it is hard to bear, there is so many of them—all facing me and all with the same crazy look on their faces—but directly one old drunk goes down and two fellers, what had looked like they couldn’t keep going much longer anyways, stop to haul their friend up and all three of them limp off to the bar.
That makes it easier, for no one wants to be the first to quit. But now one after another of them, seeing others going strong while they themselves are winded and like to drop, these ones give it up and commence to making bets amongst themselves.
After a quarter of an hour, it is down to me, one of the spotty faces, and four of our regular customers, strong dancers who have won whisky prizes back of this. With only five still on the floor, I can hear the music again and the tune slides from “Old Joe Clark” to “Roasted Rabbit” and the crowd sends up a laugh and they all sing together, “If you want some roasted rabbit, You can go upstairs and have it …” and I feel my face go bright red and I dance for all I’m worth.
And the music grabs me and it seems that my legs ain’t my own, that the floor is rising and falling beneath my feet—that I am a limberjack, powered by something outside myself. And my legs rise and fall and rise and fall and I smile and smile and smile the painted smile of the limberjack.
Entry from An Appalachian Dictionary
Limberjack (also known as Dancin’ Dan)—traditional Appalachian toy/percussion instrument comprised of a loose-jointed wooden figure (sometimes called a jig doll) attached to a long stick. The operator holds the doll over a thin wooden board and manipulates board and doll so that the doll’s feet tap rhythmically as if clogging. Said to be of Irish origin.
Chapter 26
Redbird Flies
Gudger’s Stand, 1938
I danced them down that first night, and the second and the third and the nights after that … and now it has come round to Saturday again and I still ain’t gone upstairs with no one. The music has carried me along through the week though now my legs is sore and my feet are blistered. Last night there was blood in my slippers where some of the blisters had broke.
Every night I danced them down and every night there was fewer in the contest and more in the crowd, for the boss had raised the entry fee to half a dollar a head. But there was always some newcomers who, having heard about the contest and the prize, was eager to try their luck.
Business was awful good for midweek—plumb roaring, to tell the truth—and the boss sent for more whisky, so raw and new that he had to doctor it with all manner of things—juice from the green hulls of walnuts, tobacco, and I don’t know what all. Things has been lively upstairs too and the girls is ill at me, saying the customers has been riding them extry hard, having gotten all worked up watching the dancing.
But tonight … I am fearful for what may happen. My feet is swole and raw and my legs have taken to cramping. I ask the boss, could we put off the dance down till Monday, but he just laughs.
“This was your idea, Redbird,” he says, “and I’ll not deny we’re doing a land office business. But I expect there’ll be more than ever here tonight, and if I try to tell them you want to cry off …”
He corks up another bottle he has just filled with his new-bought whisky and puts it in a crate under the bar with the others. “Was I foolish enough to do that,” he says, “there’s no telling what some of those fellers might get up to—the way you been teasing them.” The boss leans against the bar and points a finger at me. It is all stained black from the walnut hulls and I can’t take my eyes from it as he waggles it at me.
“Listen here, girl,” he says. “If your feet are hurting you so bad—well, quicker you lose the dance down, the quicker you can get off your feet and on your back … take a load off, as you might say.”
It ain’t no use talking to him, so I go up the stairs to my room. It’s late in the afternoon and all the girls is resting, stretched out reading romance magazines or napping. As I pass by their open doors, not one calls out to me. Sharleen is the worst; when I go by her door, she throws something my way. It falls on the floor with a soggy splat and I see that it is a used safe.
I am like to vomick but I don’t let on I even saw it.
In my room I sit on my bed and watch out the window. The train has just pulled in and there is a crowd of folks getting off at the depot. Like always, I strain my eyes to see if one of them might be Young David, come back for me, but none of them is. Something in the shape of one man wearing a dark suit and toting two big old grips looks familiar but his hat hides his face from me. He is pushed aside by a gang of men from off the train. They are heading up the road towards the Stand, all laughing and talking loud. As they get nearer, I hear my name mixed in with a lot of ugly talk.
I draw back from the window and lay down on my bed. It is for certain sure that tonight I ain’t got a chance of winning and I dread what is to come.
“Hey, kiddo, the boss sent me to clue you in on a few things.”
