The Thicket

  “That big hog part of the circus, too?”

  “He walks the high wire,” Shorty said.

  “That hog?”

  “He is quite agile,” Shorty said.

  “If I was to string up a rope between some trees, could he walk it?”

  “No,” Shorty said. “He has to have a very taut wire, and he does not work without a net.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because he does not want to fall and strike the ground.”

  “Oh, yeah. I can see that. I know I’d want a net. Course, you ain’t getting me up any higher than a footstool.”

  “About this fat thief,” I said. “We would love to get that money back and buy that shoe.”

  “The monkeys can keep the clothes,” Shorty said.

  Turned out that fellow knew what everyone else knew. That there was a gang of ruffians down in the woods somewhere, and that a fellow named Cut Throat might be among them. We were of course playing it that Fatty was taking our money and joining in with them, and that they all planned to go into the circus business together financed by the money for Shorty’s wife’s little shoe.

  “I tell you this,” said the man. “I’ve heard about Cut Throat. I think I may have seen him come by, though I ain’t sure it was. One of the niggers said it was. This fella, whoever he was, always had a mess of men with him, ten or twelve. And if he’s down there and half of what I’ve heard about him is true, you might want to tell that midget woman she’s just gonna be a cripple and that’s all there is to it. Or you got to start back saving up your money again to buy that shoe.”

  “We’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

  The exact place they were staying he didn’t know, but he knew it was off to the southwest. He was about as helpful as spinning a bottle in the dirt and following where the mouth of it pointed. But at least he had seen our man Fatty.

  As we turned and made our way back to our group, the sawmill man called out, “Hope that midget gal’s foot gets fixed and you can afford the shoe, little fella. I’d give you something toward it, but I got to pay the niggers.”

  We accounted how this was understandable and wandered back to our posse.

  Eustace, who had been eyeing us from a distance, said, “How’d it go? What was that about a shoe?”

  “We told him you were a lion tamer,” Shorty said.

  “What?” Eustace said.

  “You heard me,” Shorty said. “And there was much to-do about man-eating monkeys and a shoe for a crippled midget woman.”

  “What the hell?” Jimmie Sue said.

  “Your young man started it,” Shorty said to Jimmie Sue. “And to tell you the truth, he was pretty magnificent. Course, it helped the man was half drunk and nearly all stupid. That said, we know only that Fatty came by and was seen. That wraps up our information.”

  Spot, I noticed, had suddenly turned toward inner thoughts. After a moment, he said, “Are there man-eating monkeys?”

  “Of course,” Shorty said.

  We were well down the road by the time the heat of the day had burnt out and a bit of cool darkness had slipped in and the road and trees seemed to become as one with the shadows and the birds quit singing and began to coo in the darkness.

  19

  After riding a fair piece we found a narrow path cut in the woods and decided we ought to go down it and find a place to camp where we were out of main view. We couldn’t make the path out very well at first, but our eyes adjusted to it better after we had been among the thicker trees for a while, and then the woods broke wide where more trees had been chopped down and sawed, most likely by the colored men from the sawmill some miles back.

  We rode on through the clearing until we came to where the woods were wild again, and we nestled up within the pines and hardwoods for cover. We figured ourselves safe enough there, and it wasn’t any time at all until we had the horses fed and watered and hobbled. We were too tired to eat and pretty much just fell out. I lay out in the open on my bedroll with Jimmie Sue, and Hog came and lay down by us.

  I was nearly asleep when Jimmie Sue put her arm across my chest and brought her mouth close to my ear. “I wanted to grow up to be a princess, but instead I’m a whore. How did that come to be?”

  “I guess you took a wrong turn.”

  “No doubt about that.”

  “I wanted to be a farmer and I’ve come to be a killer.”

  “We both missed our turn, didn’t we?”

  I put my arm under her neck and pulled her to me. “You’re a princess to me, Jimmie Sue, no matter what turn you took. You asked what I wanted back there on the road, or words to that effect. And I got the answer. I want you.”

  “Tonight or forever?”

  “I don’t want you tonight, actually,” I said. “I’m so tired I can’t even take my pants off.”

  “That does mean something.”

  “How’s that?”

  “That you say you want me even with your pants on.”

  “Yeah. I guess so,” I said. If Jimmie Sue said anything after that I didn’t hear her, because I fell fast asleep.

  I awoke in the middle of the night with a burning thirst and saw Spot was awake, sitting on the ground just outside the thick of the pines, between a jagged stump and a burnt spot where a stump might have once been. There were also some places where the stumps had been dynamited out.

  I looked around and seen then that everyone else but Eustace was still rolled up in their bedrolls and the horses were quiet, and no one had swooped in on us to cut throats. I could hear Hog snoring next to Jimmie Sue. He may have been good in a fight and dangerous, but he wasn’t much of a watchdog.

  Now, as I said, I had been tuckered out in a serious way, but when I woke up I felt refreshed and a little eager. I felt good about Jimmie Sue. I watched her sleep for a few minutes. Her face was smooth when she slept and she looked even younger and less worn down and more pretty than usual. In sleep she was the princess she wanted to be.

  My good feelings only lasted a moment, and then I started thinking about Lula. I thought of her dressed in an old rough shirt, men’s overalls, and clodhopper boots, lying on her stomach looking at dewdrops on a blade of grass. When I came to get her, to call her for chores or to come in to breakfast, without taking her eyes off that blade of dew-dotted grass she would say, “Jack, all those little drops of water on the grass. If you were small enough, a little, little fish, that drop would be the same to you as an ocean.” Being neither small enough nor a fish, I couldn’t understand what it was Lula was getting at. Right then all I could think about was her, where she was now and what was being done to her, or had been done to her, and I felt a boiling sickness inside of me and it was all I could do not to scream.

  I slipped out from under the stuffy blanket without waking Jimmie Sue, picked up my pistol, stuck it in my belt, trudged over to where Spot was, and sat down by him. He had built a small fire and was cooking up some coffee. He had the weapon that had been given him lying nearby.

  “You know how to use that?” I asked him. I was talking softly, cause I didn’t want to stir the others.

  “I’m gonna reckon you don’t mean the coffeepot but the gun,” he said.

  “Either one,” I said. “I’ve had enough bad coffee this trip.”

  “The gun I’m no real good at and don’t plan to use it. As for coffee, Shorty likes it too black, Eustace likes it too watery, Jimmie Sue don’t drink enough to matter, and the sheriff don’t care one way or another. So I got to make it how I like it.”

  “What about me?” I asked.

  “I ain’t considered on you much,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I mean I can’t get no handle on you. I can’t figure your ways.”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “I mean I know your sister has been toted off, but I’m wondering what you think you’ll be getting back.”

  “My sister,” I said.

  “Someone who looks like
your sister,” he said.

  “You can’t know that. I’m tired of hearing that from everyone. You can’t know a thing like that.”

  “I guess not,” he said. “But my Grandpa Weeden, he told me in slave days he got sold from his mother and father. Actually they sold his father off early on, when he was a runt, and then he got sold a few years after. He reckoned he was ten, but he wasn’t entirely sure. Wasn’t much paid for him, and the man bought him didn’t really need him, but bought him because he wanted to separate the piglet from the sow, so to speak. Grandpa Weeden said he figured that’s how it was and why it was, cause on the farm he saw how much this fella liked to pull a piglet away from a sow hog, how much he liked to hear that pig screech and that mama hog carry on. He liked that so much, he would get him a board and whip on that old mama hog. Then he’d throw that pig up in the air, over the slats in the pen, and let it fall down in the mud. He thought that was funny. My Grandpa Weeden said that was how he figured the man saw him, as a piglet he could buy cheap and take away from the sow and he’d just wean it and never think about where it come from.”

  “If you’re talking about my sister being weaned, I’m sure she’ll remember where she come from and how things were.”

  “That’s the problem I’m talking about. She’ll remember, all right, same as Grandpa Weeden, but there’s just some places you can’t go back to, and the remembering of them makes it worse.”

  The coffee water was boiling. I went to my saddlebag, got my tin cup out of it, and brought it back. Spot had his own cup, and he poured us some of his makings. It was good and dark, but not too bitter or too weak. It had a taste that was akin to the way it smelled, which ain’t always the case with coffee.

  I looked around, noticed Eustace hadn’t come back. I said, “Where’s Eustace?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but I seen him wander down there into the woods. I think he had a bottle with him, and I figured him pretty drunk on account of he had that drunk way of walking, like one foot was on high ground and the other one hurt.”

  “He’s not supposed to drink,” I said.

  “You go tell him that,” Spot said.

  I shook my head. “Not me.”

  “Listen here,” Spot said. “I’m gonna put a bite of beans to heat in a pan. You watch them while I go relieve myself in the woods. Only thing you got to do is stir them now and again, and don’t let them scald.”

  “All right,” I said.

  He got the beans ready, gave me a big spoon, and went away into the woods. It was less dark now because it was near morning. Light was seeping in near the bottoms of the trees. There was one spot where it was golden and the light appeared to jump a little. I was watching that when Shorty came up.

  “You have more beans?” he said.

  “No,” I said. “You got to ask Spot if he does. He’ll be back in a moment. He’s taking care of his toilet.”

  “Where is Eustace?” Shorty said.

  “Spot says he thinks he has a bottle. Saw him wander off this morning, into the woods there.”

  “Damn. Got it in town is my guess. I thought I smelled liquor on his breath last night. He probably had a nip, woke in the night and had another, went off in the woods to finish it. That, my friend, is not a good thing. But I will deal with him…Jack, I will say this just once. What I said about true love. Maybe I am wrong. I watch how you look at Jimmie Sue and how she looks at you, and I have to say it seems more than lust.”

  “I think we are going to marry,” I said.

  “That might be carrying it too far, but I wish you luck and prosperity. Even if, when this is over, Eustace and I will own all your land.”

  Shorty grinned, stuck out his hand, and we shook. “Good luck to you, Jack,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Considering your feelings on love and marriage, I got to take that as sincere.”

  “Right now it is sincere,” he said, still holding on to my hand. “Ask me how I feel tomorrow.”

  He let go of my hand. I said, “I hate to spoil a good moment, but I have to go make water. Watch the beans, will you?”

  “In love, but practical,” Shorty said.

  I gave him the spoon.

  Like a moth, I started to where the sun glowed most. I walked on out until I was well in the woods, because I had more in mind than a watering. I got my pants down without dropping my pistol in the dirt, leaned against a tree, and took a mess right there. I wiped on some leaves, being careful not to gather up any poison ivy leaves in the process.

  I finished my toilet, pulled up my pants, turned to look toward the brightening of the sun. That glow I had seen was still there. It seemed to be hanging between the trees even as the light grew bright. I walked toward it, sniffing the air, because now I could smell smoke. I could hear, too, a kind of crying. I pulled my pistol and went along quietly, using a deer trail so as to make less noise. The light I had been watching grew brighter, and it jumped a little. The smell of smoke was thicker, and there were thin snakes of it floating in the air. I knew then that it wasn’t the light of rising morning I had seen but a big fire. The crying was still going on. My gun hand trembled. I could hear voices, laughing, and a kind of snorting sound.

  I ducked low and crept along until I come to where I could hear the voices better and I could see the fire, if not its source. It was rising up high over a hill that was covered in brush and dropped off out of sight. I eased up to the brush, hunkered down behind it, and peeked through.

  20

  Below me there was a great fire built in a clear spot, and the logs had collapsed and flames were licking the last of them; most were already burnt into embers and ashes. Sunlight was breaking clean and heavy, and I was able to see better what was down there, though it all had a rosy haze about it from the fire and the rising sun. It made the dew on the bushes sparkle like tiny jewels.

  The woods were cut open wide, and there was a small cabin. It was cruder than the trading post. It was flat-roofed and didn’t have a chimney, but there was a metal stovepipe poking up out of it, and the smoke coming from it was black and greasy-looking. I guessed that was the cook fire, and the fire out front of the place had been where people had gathered and had light to see by. Considering the weather, it would have been a hot evening.

  More peculiar was a black bear with a thick logging rope tied around its hind leg, the other end bound to a tree. I reckon the bear had about twenty feet of rope to go out on. The bear wasn’t anywhere near the fire or the cabin. It just sat still and snorted from time to time.

  There was a crude log corral out back with horses in it. I counted them. There were twelve. That didn’t mean there were twelve people, of course, as there could have been spare mounts, but it didn’t mean there were only twelve, either, if you considered every horse had a rider and that some might have been riding double and there was a wagon without mules or horses pulled up in the yard. Starting out to the side and running alongside the cabin there was a narrow dirt road that ran into the clearing. It was a logging road, and fresh. I bet just a month before it had been nothing more than a critter trail, but now it was wide as a wagon and winding onto land that looked to have been cut down with Satan’s own scythe.

  But none of this held my attention as much as something else. Cut Throat and Nigger Pete had Spot down close to the fire, just out of reach of the bear. They had stripped Spot’s clothes off and had been at his chest with a stick of burning wood. In fact, Cut Throat still held the stick in his hand. He was chewing tobacco and saying something to Spot I couldn’t understand, and now and then he’d spit tobacco on him. Spot couldn’t do anything back, because Cut Throat was sitting on his legs and Nigger Pete had hold of Spot’s arms and had the back of Spot’s head against his knee.

  There were some other people down there, too, and they wandered up for a look at Spot, then wandered away. It was as if they had seen something curious, like a fly stuck in a jar of honey, and then grown tired of it. They meandered about the place, spittin
g and drinking from jugs and peeing off to the side of the house. One skinny, shirtless man, wearing overalls with one strap loose off a shoulder, was near the bear. He looked as if his nose had been borrowed from someone bigger, and he was the only one I seen wasn’t wearing a gun. He was making dirt clods and throwing them at the helpless bear. When the first clod hit, the bear stood up and waved its paws and growled. The man laughed and threw more clods.

  In that moment Spot looked up, his mouth open, crying heavily, and I can’t honestly tell you I know he seen me for sure, but he was looking my way, and for an instant I think his eyes widened because I think he saw my face between a split in the brush, and for a moment his face softened, as if he thought I might be there to help him. He could have called out for me, but he didn’t, and I don’t know if that’s because he didn’t actually see me and I just thought he did, or was being brave and not wanting me to get caught, too, or if he just didn’t have the juice left in him to make any noise. But I do know this. If he did think I was there to help him, I wasn’t. Oh, I wanted to. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

  I was just a boy with a gun I didn’t really know how to use, and down below was all of them, those monsters, and maybe I’m putting too fine an explanation on it, and not mentioning well enough just how scared I was, but the bottom of the creek is that I didn’t do anything about it because I was afraid to. That ain’t really an excuse, but it’s all the one I got.

  Spot turned his face away from me and looked slightly to the side in a manner that seemed to say I quit on this entire thing we call life. I just quit. That’s when Cut Throat, having had all the fun he wanted, put down the burning stick and pulled a razor from inside that dead man’s suit of clothes he was wearing, opened it, and very slowly, with the skill and precision of a barber shaving a pesky eyebrow hair, leaned forward and cut a deep wound in Spot’s forehead. The blood didn’t spray. There was just a line of a mark from the razor, and then in the now-bright sunlight that had risen above the tree line, the cut turned red and Cut Throat moved. Nigger Pete, as if he’d had the practice, tilted Spot’s head back and the blood sprayed and Nigger Pete cackled like a hen that had just laid an egg.