“None taken,” Jane said.
“Those men work for him and get a cut of the pea sales to the canning factory.”
“Looks like it would be cheaper to pay labor instead of overseers,” Jane said.
Gasper shook his head. “Nope. He can work us as long as it takes. Those men, all they got to do is stand around with guns, and when the peas get gathered, they run them by truck to Lindale and get paid pretty good money, even for this depression. Good compared to some things, anyhow, and all they got to do is stand around. It’s our backs get tired, not theirs. And heck, they even get a cut of the peas. I wish I did. I especially like them crowder peas and the red rippers.”
“Don’t do that,” Jane said, “you’re going to make me hungry. They just come get us in the morning and put us to work?”
“Yep,” Gasper said. “They take you out to the field, and the men with guns are there. Shotguns. They ain’t playing, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I seen a man run for it and they shot him.”
“Really?” I said.
“It looked real enough to me,” Gasper said. “They shot him and he didn’t get up. A couple of them dragged him off and we didn’t never see him again. I doubt they’ve given him an inside job somewhere. He’s dead.”
“Damn,” Jane said.
“Yeah,” Gasper said. “Damn. When you get there, you start working right away. You pick peas, fill your bags, and empty them in bushel baskets in the back of a truck at the ends of the rows. There’s two trucks. It goes like that until it gets solid dark, then they march you back here, give you some beans, and it starts all over the next day. That one meal is all you get. Did he promise you the three a day?”
“He did,” I said. “Can’t believe we fell for it.”
“Times like this make a person stupid,” Gasper said. “Something deep down told me this wasn’t a good idea, and I did it anyway.”
“We understand that,” I said.
For a while we just sat there and felt sorry for ourselves. Then Jane said, “Didn’t you say you been thinking on things, like maybe you know a way out?”
“I don’t know it’s a way out, but there’s something I been thinking on trying. I ain’t had the courage yet.”
“Any of the others in on it?” Jane said.
“No.”
“Why did you even mention it to us?” Jane asked.
“ ’Cause you talk to me and don’t mind sitting by me,” Gasper said. “Also, I think y’all can run fast, and maybe the others here can’t. Most of them are old worn-out men and women that ain’t got nothing to look forward to, except maybe this roof and that bowl of beans at the end of the day. They don’t like it, and they don’t deserve it, but I think maybe they’ve done given up. Us together, we might do something. One thing I learned is this stuff about how a man has to stand up and make it on his own is all right if you got money and some talent or some luck. But if all you got is two legs and two arms and have to work, it’s right tough.”
“Amen to that,” Jane said.
“What I’m thinking is, on the east side of the field, where we dump some of the peas—and you got to be in the row going that way to dump your bag—there’s a swamp. I think that’s the way out. On the other side is just woods. They got an old hound dog they can bring into things if they want. It ain’t always around, but sometimes they have it. It’ll bite too. I seen it bite a man once.”
“I don’t swim very well,” I said.
“Don’t need to,” Gasper said. “It’s about knee-deep, and once you get into it a ways, there’s trees everywhere. Still water, but trees to hide behind.”
“That doesn’t sound like much,” I said.
“No, it don’t,” Gasper said, “but there’s a little more to it. Couple days back I was by the swamp, dumping my bag of peas into baskets in the truck, and I noticed something. There was a fishing boat that had floated up. It ain’t where we are now, it’s on up the rows, but we’ll be there in about three days.”
“I see where this is going,” I said.
“Yeah,” Gasper said. “Ain’t much to it, really. And it may not even be a boat that’s all together. It could be caught up there in roots and vines and have a hole in the bottom. I only seen it from a distance. It probably come loose from along the river somewhere. It looked real worn. It might have been floating around out there for years before it come to rest in them trees. Thing is, though, it’s a good trek to get to it, and shotgun blasts travel quick. So my plan is simple: when I get up there even with it, I’m going to go for it, try and push it out in deeper water and make an escape.”
“Iffy,” I said.
“Yeah, it is,” Gasper said. “But I don’t know how much longer I can take this.”
“Maybe we could all take a look tomorrow, and then we might have some idea about it,” Jane said. “Maybe four heads will be better than one.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Gasper said.
“Forget the boat,” Tony said. “Just take the truck.”
“What, now?” Gasper said.
“Just jump in the truck and drive off.”
“I don’t reckon they leave the keys in it,” I said.
“Yeah they do,” Gasper said. “You see, they start at one end, and when we pick, they keep easing the truck up. They leave the keys in it. When I come up with my bag to dump, I seen the man pulling up and getting out, and I seen the keys. But I didn’t think nothing of it ’cause I can’t drive.”
“I can drive,” I said.
“He’s the only one of us who can,” Jane said. “Tony was about to learn how, and then Papa got the tractor rolled over him.”
“I never had nobody to teach me,” Gasper said.
“Pa only wanted to teach me so I could do the work he didn’t want to do,” Tony said.
“That’s the truth,” Jane said.
“Thing is,” Gasper said, “it won’t be any easier taking the truck than getting to the boat, ’cause they’re right there by the truck.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But wading in a swamp with a gun pointed at you ain’t all that easy of an escape either.”
“Way I figure,” Gasper said, “ain’t none of it any good.”
“No,” Jane said. “But those two ideas, right now, they’re all we got.”
36
I didn’t sleep so good, ’cause that bag I was lying on wasn’t any thicker than a wish and a prayer.
Sheriff Big Bill and another man opened the door and called us out before daylight. I was so sore from that hard ground I could hardly walk. Bill had his revolver in a holster on his hip, and the other man had a shotgun. The man with the shotgun was grinning all the time we came out. He really grinned when Jane came out.
I figured, even by not meaning to, she had already added another fly to the ointment. Her being pretty was something that bad people noticed as much as good, but the bad people didn’t have a positive mind-set about the matter.
As we were being shuffled out to the fields, a rooster crowed off in the distance. We were up before him. It was pretty bad when the rooster got to sleep in and we didn’t.
When we arrived at the field, it was still not daylight, but by the time we went to the back of a truck and were given bags and sent out into the field, morning light was creeping through the trees like a bloodstain.
Gasper took his picking bag and said to me, “Middle of the day, you’re going to get so hungry your belly is going to think your throat is cut. Take a few of the peas and strip them and eat them. Don’t let them see you do it, but you’ll need to do it. They ain’t much, but they’ll keep you going. They’ll give you water, and sometimes they give you a little bread, but you can’t count on it. Only meal you can count on is the beans, and they ain’t always good and cooked, and Sheriff and his boys don’t mind if there’s a bug or two in ’em. But you best eat ’em all, otherwise you’ll be so weak you can’t get up.”
“Thanks,” I said.
They put us in some close-togeth
er rows, each of us in a different row, though there was someone at your back picking the one behind you. I had Gasper at my back.
I counted and there were ten workers all together, counting us and Gasper. The other six were four men and two women. All of them were old, and a couple of them were Mexican. Probably come across the border looking for work and ended up with this. One of them had the shakes. Gasper said it was because he was a drinker and now he wasn’t getting any liquor.
We picked, and off to the east—I knew that because that was where the sun rose—I could see a pickup with two men standing at it. Both of them had shotguns. Behind them I could see the swamp water that ran along the edge of the field, and a ways in back of that were the trees. I tried to see the boat up above it, but couldn’t. I hoped it was still there, but the idea of the boat was less and less interesting to me. That didn’t make Tony’s idea of stealing the truck seem any better, but at least it was an idea that wasn’t wet.
Within a couple of hours, my back ached. I hadn’t done this kind of work in a while. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad had there been money and not slavery, and if the hours were reasonable.
After picking until noon, we were allowed to go up to the truck on the east side to get a drink. We took turns with a dipper in a water can. We were allowed two dips, then we were done. The water was warm, but it was water. My clothes were so wet with sweat, it was like I had been wearing them swimming. They let us sit awhile in the shade of the truck, but it was time for us to get up and go before we were any kind of rested.
Maybe that was best. I could hardly move, and the longer I sat, the harder it was to get up.
When I come around in front of the truck, I looked down a ways and saw what Gasper had been talking about. It wasn’t much of a boat, and I thought even if we got to it, there were no paddles, and those men could wade after us as fast as we could wade in. It was a plan that hadn’t sounded too good to begin with, but now it seemed even worse.
We picked all day, and when night finally came, we picked a little in the dark and unloaded our peas into the baskets. There was only one man at the truck now, and he kept telling us to hurry.
The other man had gone off in the woods, most likely to take care of bathroom business. By the time we were walking across the row again, the man with the shotgun was at our backs, and the other one had come out of the woods and got in the truck and drove it off. As he did, a big bloodhound lifted its head up and stuck it out the window. Another problem with trying to steal the truck. Dogs bite.
They took us to where there was an outhouse and let us go in there one at a time and do our business, with them beating on the door almost the second we were inside, telling us to hurry. It wasn’t a thing that lent itself well to a bathroom visit.
Back at the barracks, we went inside, and a little later, Sheriff Big Bill came with a pot of beans and a man with a shotgun. Bill had metal plates, and he passed those out, and then some metal cups. He scooped beans from the pot with a cup, gave us all a plateful. They let us dip some water from a water cooler, and then we had to sit down. We didn’t have any spoons, so we ate the beans with our fingers and sucked the juice from the plate by tilting it into our mouths.
The beans were cold and the water was warm. They took up our plates and cups and took the pot and the water with them. They locked the door. The sound of that padlock going into place was like hearing the crack of doom.
Jane sat down against the wall where we’d been the night before and said, “Home, sweet home.”
37
Sitting in the barracks, our backs against the wall, we talked some, all except Jane. She just kept staring at the crack in the wall, and at the little bit of moonlight and starlight coming in through it.
Eventually the talk died down, and we were getting ready to settle in, when Jane said, “I saw that boat. I don’t think it’s such a good idea. They’d shoot your head off before you got to it, and if you did get to it, they could still wade out to you faster than you could push it off. And if there aren’t any paddles in the boat, you couldn’t make any real time. You’d be better off just trying to slosh through the water. And you know what I saw out there?”
“What?” Gasper said. “A snake?”
“I saw a couple of them too, but what I meant was I saw an alligator. I don’t like alligators, and I can say that without ever having any kind of personal relationship with one. And I don’t want my first visit with them to be about lunch, and me being the lunch.”
“An alligator?” Tony said.
“Yes, sir,” Jane said. “An alligator.”
“Count me out on that plan,” Tony said. “I’d rather pick peas.”
“What I’m wondering,” Jane says, “is what happens to us when all the peas are picked. He says no one would believe us, but I think maybe he might think someone would.”
“You mean he might hurt us?” I said.
“I was thinking something a little beyond hurt,” she said. “Obviously, he’s not what one would call a fine and upstanding representative of the law. I think he would shoot us, and I think if he didn’t, his men would. Gasper already said they killed a man, and we have no way of knowing if there are others. Dead is easier than having to deal with us telling what happened to us, even if it is hard to believe.”
“I figure we got a couple weeks of pea picking just in this field,” Gasper said. “I think he’s got other fields.”
“I hear you,” Jane said, “but I’m not that fond of pea picking, and I don’t want to keep eating beans.”
“It’s better than eating dirt,” Gasper said.
“It is,” Jane said, “but if I’m dead I won’t taste the dirt. Those beans I got to taste, and I tell you, I’m really tired of them. And let me tell you another thing. I don’t like going to the bathroom, then having to eat beans with my fingers. You see where I’m going with this?”
“I just didn’t think about that part,” said Gasper. “I didn’t want to. I wish you hadn’t brought it up.”
“Yes, but I have,” Jane said. “I’ve thought on the second plan, Tony’s plan.”
“And?” Tony said.
“I’m going to say this, Gasper,” Jane said, “and don’t take offense, but it’s a better plan than yours.”
“I ain’t offended,” Gasper said.
“That said,” Jane said, “it isn’t any good either.”
“So what now?” I said.
“You see that crack where the light is coming in?” she asked.
We all agreed that we did.
“It’s wide enough to get fingers through,” she said.
“So,” Gasper said.
“So, nothing for sure,” Jane said, “but you see that dust on the floor there, piled up on the dirt? That’s termite work. They’ve been working on that spot, maybe a lot of other spots. But this spot I can see, and the way I figure it, Jack here, who is a strapping young man, or you, Gasper, might be able to get their fingers through the crack and pull on it, see if the boards will loosen any.”
“If I pull,” I said, “I’m just going with the way the nails are driven in.”
“Let me say that different,” Jane said. “See if you can get a handhold of some sort, and push.”
Sometimes you hear an idea, and you think, that’s not much of an idea, it’s too simple. You been thinking about splashing through water, stealing a boat, or maybe trying to take the truck and run, fight off a bloodhound and dodge shotgun pellets, and then someone says something simple, and you think, that can’t work, there ain’t nothing to it. But another part of you says, you know, maybe you been overthinking this thing.
I stuck my fingers through. I could only get two through it, the two closest to my thumb. I did that and grabbed with them and pushed with my palm. It was kind of like trying to turn a car over.
“That isn’t working so good,” I said.
“Here,” Gasper said. “Let me try with you.”
He got a lower place in the crack,
which ran from the top of the building to the bottom, and pushed. That didn’t move anything either.
Tony laid on his back and put his feet against the board and we all pushed. There was a squeak of nails.
“I think it loosened a bit,” Gasper said.
We all stopped and waited, thinking that squeak might bring someone running, but it didn’t. Way we felt right then, it was a chance worth taking. The sheriff thought he had us locked in good, and that might be to our advantage. He might not have too swell an eye on things right then, and if that was the case, we had a chance at getting away. Wasn’t but one way to find out.
Jane got up and came over and put her palms on the board, and we pulled our fingers out of the crack and we all leaned against it, with Tony pushing with his feet. It didn’t squeak again. Then I felt something in the dark. It was the other folk in there. They had come over to stand by us.
“We can all push,” said one of the two women. “We ain’t got much strength by ourselves, but together we might be able to do something.”
They scrambled about, finding a place for their hands, trying not to step on Tony as he pushed with his legs.
So we all pushed.
The nails squeaked.
That made us pause. But only for a moment. No one came to stop us. We were desperate, and we were committed. So we pushed some more. One of the boards loosened near the bottom. It was too narrow for anyone to get out there, and it was still hooked solid at the top, but we kept pushing at it, and pretty soon it popped out. We stopped then, listened.
No one came running around to shoot us.
A dog didn’t bark.
“They figure we’re so good and locked-in,” said one of the men, “they don’t even keep a close guard.”
“Yeah,” said the woman who had spoken before. “We all just give up. But we weren’t all together on things.”
“Don’t talk it to death,” Jane said. “Push.”