Amos opened the kitchen door and went into the house. Hod walked towards the barn where the jack was calmly eating red nubbins by the crib door.
When Hod reached the barnyard gate, the jack lifted his head and looked at him. He had two or three nubbins of red corn in his jaws, and he stopped chewing and crunching the grains and cobs while he looked at Hod. One of the jack’s ears lay flat against the top of his head and neck, and the other one stood straight up in the air, as stiff as a cow’s horn. The jack’s ears were about fourteen or sixteen inches long, and they were as rigid as bones.
Hod tossed the piece of stovewood aside and walked to the opened gate for a piece of rope. He believed he could halter the jack by himself.
He started into the barnyard, but he had gone no farther than a few steps when boards began to fly off the side of the barn. The mare in the stall was kicking like a pump gun. One after the other, the boards flew off, the mare whinnied, and the jack stood listening to the pounding of the mare’s hooves against the pine boards.
When Hod saw what was happening to his barn, he ran towards the jack, yelling and waving his arms and trying to get him to the leeward side of the barn.
“Howie! Howie!” he yelled at the jack.
As long as the mare got wind of the jack, nothing could make her stop kicking the boards off the barn from the inside. Hod jumped at the jack, waving his arms and shouting at him.
“Howie! Howie!”
He continued throwing up his arms to scare the jack away, but the jack just turned and looked at Hod with one ear up and one ear down.
“Howie! You ugly-looking son of a bitch! Howie!”
Hod turned around to look towards the house to see if Shaw and Amos were coming. He turned just in time to see Amos jumping out the window.
“Hey there, Amos!” Hod yelled. “Where’s Shaw?”
“Mr. Shaw says he ain’t going to get up till he gets ready to. Mr. Shaw cussed pretty bad and made me jump out the window.”
The jack began to paw the ground. Hard clods of stableyard sand and manure flew behind him in all directions. Hod yelled at him again.
“Howie! Howie! You flop-eared bastard!”
The jack stopped and turned his head to look at Amos on the other side of the fence.
“Mr. Hod,” Amos said, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to have a word with you.”
Hod yelled at Amos and at the jack at the same time.
“Mr. Hod,” Amos said, “if I don’t go home now and chop that stove-wood, me and my folks won’t have no dinner at all.”
“Come back here!” Hod shouted at him.
Amos came as far as the gate, but he would not come any farther.
Suddenly the jack lifted his head high in the air and brayed. It sounded as if someone were blowing a trumpet in the ear.
The bray had no more than died out when the mare began pounding the boards with both hind hooves, the boards flying off the side of the barn faster than Hod could count them. He turned and looked to see what Amos was doing, and over his head he saw Daisy at the window. She looked as if she had completely lost her mind.
The jack brayed again, louder than ever, and then he leaped for the open barnyard gate. Hod threw the rope at him, but the rope missed him by six feet. The jack was through the gate and out around the house faster than Hod could yell. Amos stood as if his legs had been fence posts four feet deep in the ground.
The jack stopped at the open bedroom window, turned his head towards the house, and brayed as if he were calling all the mares in the entire county. Daisy ran to the window and looked out, and when she saw the jack no more than arm’s length from her, she screamed and fell backward on the floor.
“Head him, Amos! Head him!” Hod yelled, running towards the jack.
Amos’s feet were more than ever like fence posts. He was shaking like a tumbleweed, but his legs and feet were as stiff as if they had been set in concrete.
“Where in hell is that God damn sailor!” Hod yelled. “Why in hell don’t he get up and help me some around here! If I had the time now, I’d go in there with a piece of cordwood and break every bone in his head. The son of a bitch comes home here on leave once a year and lays up in bed all day and stays out all night running after women. If that seagoing son of a bitch comes here again, I’ll kill him!”
“Yonder goes your jack, Mr. Hod,” Amos said.
Daisy stuck her head out of the window again. She was looking to see where the jack was, and she did not look at Hod. She was standing there pulling at herself, and getting more wild-eyed every second. She disappeared from sight as quickly as she had first appeared.
“Come on, you black bastard,” Hod said; “let’s go after him. I ought to pick up a stick and break your neck for bringing that God damn jack here to raise the devil. He’s got the mare kicking down the barn, and Daisy is in there acting crazy as hell.”
They started out across the broom sedge after the loping jack. The jack was headed for Folger, a mile away.
“If I ever get my hands on that jack, I’ll twist his neck till it looks like a corkscrew,” Hod panted, running and leaping over the yellow broom sedge. “Ain’t no female safe around a sailor or a jack, and here I am running off after one, and leaving the other in the house.”
They lost sight of the jackass in a short while. The beast had begun to circle the town, and he was now headed down the side of the railroad tracks behind the row of Negro cabins. They soon saw him again, though, when the jack slowed down at a pasture where some horses were grazing.
A hundred yards from the cabins they had to run down into a gully. Just as they were crawling up the other side, a Negro girl suddenly appeared in front of them, springing up from nowhere. She was standing waist-high in the broom sedge, and she was as naked as a pickaninny.
Hod stopped and looked at her.
“Did you see a jack?” he said to her.
“White-folks, I saw that jack, and he brayed right in my face. I just jumped up and started running. I can’t sit still when I hear a jackass bray.”
Hod started off again, but he stopped and came back to look at the girl.
“Put your clothes back on,” he said. “You’ll get raped running around in the sedge this close to town like that.”
“White-captain,” she said, “I ain’t hard to rape. I done heard that jackass bray.”
Hod turned and looked at Amos for a moment, Amos was walking around in a circle with his hands in his pockets.
“Come on,” Hod told him, breaking through the broom sedge. “Let’s get that jack, Amos.”
They started towards the pasture where the jack had stopped. When the jack saw them coming, he turned and bolted over the railroad tracks and started jogging up the far side of the right-of-way towards Folger. Hod cut across to head him off and Amos was right behind to help.
There were very few men in town at that time of day. Several storekeepers sat on Coca-Cola crates on the sidewalk under the shade of the water-oak trees, and several men were whittling white pine and chewing tobacco. The bank was open, and RB, the cashier, was standing in the door looking out across the railroad tracks and dusty street. Down at the lumber mill, the saws whined hour after hour.
The jack slowed down and ran into the hitching yard behind the brick bank. When Hod saw that the jack had stopped, he stopped running and tried to regain his breath. Both he and Amos were panting and sweating. The August sun shone down on the dry baked clay in the oval where the town was and remained there until sunset.
Hod and Amos sat down in the shade of the depot and fanned themselves with their hats. The jack was standing calmly behind the bank, switching flies with his tail.
“Give me back my fifty cents, Amos,” Hod said. “You can have that God-damn jack. I don’t want him.”
“I couldn’t do that, Mr. Hod,” Amos pleaded. “We done made the trade, and I can’t break it now. You’ll just have to keep that jack. He’s yours now. If you want to get shed of him, go sell him to someb
ody else. I don’t want that jack. I’d heap rather have my old dollar watch back again. I wish I’d never seen that jack in all my life. I can do without him.”
Hod said nothing. He looked at the brick bank and saw RB looking out across the railroad tracks towards the stores where the men were sitting on upturned Coca-Cola crates in the water-oak shade.
“Sit here and wait,” Hod said, getting up. “I’ve just thought of something. You sit here and keep your eyes on that jack till I come back.”
“You won’t be gone long, will you, Mr. Hod? I don’t mind watching your animal for you, but I’d sure hate to have to look at that jack any more than I’m compelled to. He don’t like my looks, and I sure don’t like his. That’s the ugliest-looking creature that’s ever been in this country.”
“Wait here till I get back,” Hod said, crossing the tracks and walking towards the brick bank.
RB saw Hod coming, and he went back inside and stood behind his cashier’s cage.
Hod walked in, took off his hat and leaned his arm on the little shelf in front of the cage.
“Hello, RB,” he said. “It’s hot today, ain’t it?”
“Do you want to deposit money, or make a loan?”
Hod fanned himself and spat into the cuspidor.
“Miss it?” RB asked, trying to see through the grill.
“Not quite,” Hod said.
RB spat into his own cuspidor at his feet.
“What can I do for you?” he said.
“Well, I’ll tell you, RB,” Hod said. “It’s like this. You’ve got all this money here in the bank and it ain’t doing you much good where it is. And here I come with all my money tied up in livestock. There ain’t but one answer to that, is there?”
“When did you get some livestock, Hod?” he asked. “I didn’t know you had anything but that old mare and that gray mule.”
“I made a trade today,” Hod said, “and now just when my money is all tied up in livestock, I find a man who’s willing to let me in on a timber deal. I need fifty dollars to swing my share. There ain’t no use trying to farm these days, RB. That’s why I’m going in for livestock and timber.”
“How many head of stock do you own?”
“Well, I’ve got that mare, Ida, out there at my place, but I ain’t counting her. And likewise that old mule.”
“How many others do you own?”
“I purchased a high-class stud animal this morning, RB, and I paid out all my ready cash in the deal.”
“A bull?”
“No, not exactly a bull, RB.”
“What was it then?”
“A jackass, RB.”
“A jackass!”
“That’s right.”
“Who in hell wants to own a jackass, Hod? I can’t lend the bank’s money on a jackass.”
“You’re in the moneylending business, RB, and I’ve got an animal to mortgage. What else do you want? I’m putting up my jack, and you’re putting up your money. That’s business, RB. That’s good business.”
“Yes, but suppose you force me to foreclose the mortgage — I’d have the jack, and then maybe I couldn’t find a buyer. Jackass buyers are pretty scarce customers, Hod. I don’t recall ever seeing one.”
“Anybody would give you a hundred dollars for a good high-class jack, RB. If you knew as much about farming and stock-raising as you do about banking, you’d recognize that without me having to tell you.”
“What does a jackass look like?”
“A jack don’t look so good to the eye, RB, but that’s not a jack’s high point. When a jack brays —”
RB came running around from behind his cage and caught Hod by the arm. He was so excited that he was trembling.
“Is that what I heard last night, Hod?”
“What?”
“A jackass braying.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised if you did. Amos was out exercising him last night, and he said the jack brayed almost all night long.”
“Come back here with me,” RB said, still shaking. “I’m going to let you have that loan, and take a mortgage on that jack. I want to have a hand in it. If I’ll let you have the loan, will you let me take the jack home and keep him at my house for about a week, Hod?”
“You’re more than welcome to him, RB. You can keep him all the time if you want to. But why do you want to keep a jack at your house? You don’t breed mules, do you?”
RB had Hod sign the papers before he replied. He then counted out five ten-dollar bills and put them into Hod’s hand.
“This is just between me and you, Hod,” he said. “Me and my wife haven’t been on speaking terms for more than a month now. She cooks my meals and does her housework, but she’s been mad at me about something and she won’t say a word or have anything to do with me. But last night, sometime after midnight, we were lying there in the bed, she as far on her side as she could get without falling out, and all at once I heard the damnedest yell I ever heard in all my life. It was that jackass braying. I know now what it was, but I didn’t know then. That jack was somewhere out in the sedge, and when he brayed, the first thing I knew, my wife was all over me, she was that scared, or something. That sounds like a lie, after I have told you about her not speaking to me for more than a month, and sleeping as far on her side of the bed as she could get without falling on the floor, but it’s the truth if I know what the truth is. That jack brayed just once, and the first thing I knew, my wife was all over me, hugging me and begging me not to leave her. This morning she took up her old ways again, and that’s why I want to stable that jack at my house for a week or two. He’ll break up that streak of not talking and not having anything to do with me. That jack is what I am in need of, Hod.”
Hod took the money and walked out of the bank towards the depot where Amos was.
“Where’s the jack, Hod?” RB said, running after him.
“Our there behind your bank,” Hod said. “You can take him home with you tonight when you close up.”
Amos got up to meet Hod.
“Come on, Amos,” Hod said. “We’re going home.”
Amos looked back over his shoulder at the jack behind the bank, watching him until he was out of sight. They walked through the broom sedge, circling the big gully, on the way home.
When they reached the front yard, Hod saw Sam sitting under a chinaberry tree. Sam got up and stood leaning against the trunk.
“What are you doing here?” Hod asked him. “What are you hanging around here for? Go on home, Sam.”
Sam came forward a step, and stepped backward two.
“Miss Daisy told me to tell you something for her,” Sam said, chewing the words.
“She said what?”
“Mr. Hod, Miss Daisy and Mr. Shaw went off down the road while you was chasing that jack. Mr. Shaw said he was taking Miss Daisy with him back to the navy yard, and Miss Daisy said she was going off and never coming back.”
Hod went to the front porch and sat down in the shade. His feet hung over the edge of the porch, almost touching the ground.
Amos walked across the yard and sat down on the steps. He looked at Hod for several minutes before he said anything.
“Mr. Hod,” he said, chewing the words worse than his son had before him, “I reckon you’d better go back to Folger and get your jack. Looks like that jack has a powerful way of fretting the womenfolks, and you’d better get him to turn one in your direction.”
(First published in We Are the Living)
Molly Cotton-Tail
MY AUNT HAD COME down South to visit us and we were all sitting around the fireplace talking. Aunt Nellie did most of the talking and my mother the rest of it. My father came in occasionally for a few minutes at a time and then went out again to walk around the house and sit in the barnyard. He and Aunt Nellie did not get along together at all. Aunt Nellie was sure she was smarter than anybody else and my father did not want to get into an argument with her and lose his temper.
Aunt Nellie’s husband had
gone down to Florida on a hunting trip and she came as far as Carolina to see us while he was away. My uncle was crazy about hunting and spent all his spare time away from home gunning for game.
“Bess,” Aunt Nellie asked my mother, “does Johnny like to hunt?” She nodded impersonally toward me where I sat by the fireplace.
My mother said I did not. And that was true. I like to catch rabbits and squirrels for pets but I did not want to kill them. I had a pet hen right then; she had been run over by a buggy wheel when she was growing up and one of her legs was broken. I hid her in the barn so my father would not know about her. She stayed there about two weeks and when the leg had healed I let her out in the yard with the other chickens. When my father did find her he said she would not have to be killed if I would take care of her and feed her because she could not scratch for worms like the other chickens. Her leg healed all right, but it was crooked and she limped every step she took.
“Well,” Aunt Nellie said to my mother, “that is a shame. If he doesn’t like to hunt he won’t grow up to be a real Southern gentleman.”
“But, Nellie,” my mother protested for me, “Johnny does not like to kill things.”
“Nonsense,” Aunt Nellie said derisively. “Any man who is a real Southern gentleman likes to hunt. The Lord only knows what he will turn out to be.”
My father would have taken up for me too if he had been in the room just then. My father did not like to kill things either.
“I’m disappointed in having a nephew who is not a real Southern gentleman. He will never be one if he never goes hunting,” Aunt Nellie always talked a long time about the same thing once she got started.
I was not greatly interested in being a real Southern gentleman when I grew up, but I did not want her to talk about me that way. Every summer she wrote my mother a letter inviting me up to her home in Maryland, and I wanted to go again this year.
My father heard what she said and went out in the backyard and threw pebbles against the barn side.
I went into the dining room where the shotgun was kept and took it off the rack. The gun was fired off to scare crows when they came down in the spring to pull up the corn sprouts in the new ground. My father never aimed to kill the crows: he merely fired off the shotgun to make the crows so gun-shy they would not come back to the cornfield.