Smonk Page 13

  He shuddered.

  Well, Evavangeline said, I’m the oldest and I say we bound for Old Texas. She burst out into the field, the cane a pleasure to tromp through the way the sugarcane stalks broke apart, the train of children following her, even Junior, skulking along at the end of the line. They crossed several fields without talking until she paused to hold open two strands of a barbed wire fence for the children to squeeze through.

  As Junior passed, she took his arm. Even if it ain’t no children, it’s got men and ladies, ain’t it?

  Not no men, he said. Not no more. He dipped through the fence and held it for her, trying to see down her shirt as she ducked.

  She let the children get a little ahead and walked alongside the boy.

  A town that ain’t got children ner men neither?

  I told ye. I don’t know where the children went, I never seen none the whole time we was there, but Mister E.O. Smonk killed the men. Ever last one. I told ye. I seen him myself a day or two ago. The boy drew out his Mississippi Gambler. He give me this knife.

  Can I see it?

  Nome. I don’t let nobody hold my knife.

  I’ll trade ye, she said.

  He looked slyly up. What ye got?

  I got two size small titties and one genuine cooter with the hair shaved in a stripe. If ye give me that knife I’ll let you see em all.

  Thow in a pecker tug.

  When they walked on a moment later she was slipping the knife down the back of her pants and he was smiling. Far ahead they saw a cluster of buzzards hanging in the air. More were coming from the south behind them, attending some event of death the way stars attended the night. Soon she spotted the faintest smudge of smoke on the horizon.

  She looked back at the children, dazed and filthy. Why don’t yall set down a bit. It’s some shade over yonder.

  They walked to where her finger pointed, a sapling pine grown out of the field, its needles brown but not yet dried to falling, and sat around it.

  She looked toward the town. Then down at Junior. How in the hell can one fellow kill ever man in a town?

  The boy shrugged. Mister E. O. Smonk ain’t no normal fellow. He’s of the devil.

  Well. Even if they ain’t no children, and even if the men’s all dead, ain’t it a bunch of ladies there?

  He didn’t answer.

  Ain’t it?

  Yeah.

  Then they could feed these younguns and doctor em and see to they needs and yers too, and I could be along my way. I can’t lose no more time on account of a bunch of damn younguns.

  Why? Where ye going?

  She stopped. For the first time it occurred to her: She didn’t know, she’d never thought of it. Well first, she said, I’m gone to get shed of the rest of yall and the closest place to do it in is Old Texas.

  I ain’t going up in there.

  Fine. You can stay in the damn sugarpatch then.

  I will.

  Hell Mary, she said. She stood looking at him. Okay, wait here with the younguns, then. I’ll go in and check it out. If I don’t come back by dark, you get these here younguns to some other town. Do not, I repeat, do not, come up in there.

  Yessum. Will ye do me one more time fore ye go?

  She looked down. No. But I’ll do ye twice when I see ye next.

  He watched her go. Hell Mary, he whispered, believing that to be the whore’s name. Hell Mary.

  Evavangeline had been smelling smoke for half an hour when she caught her foot on a set of rusted locomotive tracks that stretched as far as she could see east in one direction and west in the other. She doubted a train had rattled by in years, though. Nearby, an overflowing well-pipe gurgled water into a clay trough, its bottom coated with slick green moss. At her appearance several buzzards had flown from the rim of the trough, this likely the only water for miles. Lesser birds had congregated in the limbs of trees, waiting a turn that might never come. In the woods back from the road she saw the twin eyes of a wildcat and knew it had been watching her a long time. It wanted to eat her. Drink her blood.

  There were flat stones arranged at the well for sitting and working and she imagined ladies washing clothes here. She dunked her head and shoulders in the trough and nearly lost her breath it was so cold. She straightened up and shook like a dog, keeping her eye on the wildcat. She drank handful after handful of the water—strong taste of sulfur—until she vomited it back up. She drank more in careful sips and looked around. The strip of shade she’d found to stand in was benefit a dead tree with medicine bottles and jars on the branches. She adjusted the knife in her waistband and walked up the hill into Old Texas.

  The town was twelve or thirteen buildings facing one another across the road and houses scattered back among oak trees and dead gardens. Fences. Outbuildings. At the bottom the road turned a sharp right and there was a building still smoldering from a fire. Its chimney so tall it must of had stairs and a story up top. Across the street was what looked like a mercantile.

  Women in black dresses and veils and holding rifles came onto their porches to watch as she walked along the street. She looked behind her and they were following her.

  To ditch them she ducked right and went up the steps and through the screen door of what looked to be a nice house, hoping to find a lonesome gentleman who’d take her to his room. Maybe a bottle. There was a fellow reclining on a sideboard and she meant to sweep her hand up his leg to his crotch and see what he had. When she approached him, though, he was dead. Hence all the flies. His brown face had collapsed like a fallen cake.

  Hell Mary, she said.

  Beside him was a settee and a pitcher of water, a tall standing clock and a chaise lounge. There was a newspaper on a table. Out of nowhere her monthlies let go and ran down her legs into her boots. She began wadding the paper into a ball and stuffing it into her pants.

  You can go on use my newspaper there to stop your flow, a woman said. I used to do it myself on occasion. Usually read it first, though.

  Evavangeline spun. It was a bent little woman in black. White hair glowing under a black veil which obscured her features.

  I’m sorry, the girl said. It come on me quick.

  Do you get cramps?

  Nome. Jest get a good ole hearty flood, then it’s done.

  My mother used to say, Aunt Flo’s come to visit.

  Evavangeline wished she’d had a momma to say wise things. Or a daddy one.

  Well, it’s a nickel, the woman said.

  What is?

  That newspaper.

  Shit I ain’t got no nickel. Can I take it out in trade? Maybe get a meal, too? I ain’t eat in a number of days. Who’s that?

  That was my husband, the lady said of the dead man. He was killed yesterday early in the three o’clock hour by a murdering devil and his gang of swine.

  The woman indicated that Evavangeline follow her and they passed from the foyer into a parlor bathed in amber light through the drapes and sat together on the cushy fainting sofa.

  What the hell’s going on here? asked the girl.

  Through the window, she saw women gathered in the street. A dozen maybe.

  The lady crossed her legs and made a steeple of her fingers on her knees and cleared her throat.

  My name is Mrs. Tate. I’ll answer all your questions, if you’ll answer mine. Now. One. What’s your name?

  Evavangeline.

  Is that your given name?

  Well. Somebody give it to me.

  Who did?

  How long does this last?

  Not much longer. What’s your Christian name?

  My what?

  Your last name.

  I ain’t got nare.

  The woman frowned. How old are you?

  Perty old.

  Where are your mother and father?

  Dead I reckon. I never knew em.

  The women outside had congregated on the porch. One separated and came inside.

  Miss Evavangeline, Mrs. Tate said, this is Mrs. Hobbs. Mrs. H
obbs, I’m just interviewing Miss Evavangeline here. For our position. You ladies can go on back to your dead.

  Mrs. Hobbs nodded and left the room and reported to the others who disbanded and disappeared.

  Well, said Mrs. Tate. We’ve been needing someone like you in our town.

  Somebody like me what?

  To draw men in. If we can clean you up, get you some decent clothes.

  Evavangeline looked down at herself. Her hands on her thighs. She had blood under her fingernails, no idea whose.

  Why can’t ye draw men in ye self?

  We’re most of us too old. We have six women of childbearing years. Three were killed yesterday, along with all our men. We need husbands now. We need men to guard us. To do man’s work, grow the sugarcane. Someone as young as you…

  Well, I can sure as hell whore, the girl said. I need to git some money together, you see, cause I got a bunch of younguns—

  Children? The woman had seized Evavangeline’s forearm. I’m sorry. She unclenched and leaned back and poured herself a glass of water and drank it in one swallow under her veil. Her voice when it came was managed. Did you say you were guardian of children?

  I was, Evavangeline said, if ye’d let me finish my damn story. Like I was saying. I got them children, rescued em from a dyke and her raper of a husband—nearest I can tell, her and that raper was stealing em to sell. So there I was trying to get em home when they jest up and lit out on me. I ought to of looked for em but I been in a hurry.

  They were in the orphanage west of town? Where are the children now?

  That’s enough questions. Now it’s my turn. Who the hell is E. O. Smonk?

  The lady looked out the window behind her, as if he might be eavesdropping. He’s…a curious creature.

  Do what?

  Some citizens claim he’s of the devil but I say there’s no of about it, he is the devil. He bought a big sugarcane farm out east of here a year ago. We were all glad at first, so few men about, but then he started in on us. One by one we ran afoul of his peculiar temper and we’ve all suffered injustice upon injustice at his hands. By his hands. She stood. But I don’t want to talk about him any more. Did you say you were hungry?

  Yeah. For some biscuits and gravy. Some meat if ye got it. I can eat a lot, too. As much as ye can make. Also, I like to take my food out and eat it away from ever body. If ye don’t mind.

  Well, why don’t ye go on up the stairs to that second door while I go get it ready. You can get all cleaned up. Change your clothes. Just make sure you don’t go in the first door.

  Only the advent of her monthlies in conjunction with her hunger sent her upstairs. Mrs. Tate had gone toward the kitchen and Evavangeline paused at the first door. She checked behind her for the old woman and then turned the knob. It was dark when she entered, smell of piss. Someone wheezing. She nearly slipped on the floor crossing to open the heavy drapes. When she flung them back, light flooded the room.

  A shriveled white man-thing roped to a filthy mattress convulsed when the sun hit it. Unnnnng, it said.

  She slid the window up and stuck out her head and took in a breath of air and saw below her a pile of dead dogs at the edge of the cane. A woman in black pouring kerosene on the pile looked at her. Evavangeline stepped back and adjusted the drapes to regulate the light. She went to the thing on the bed and frowned at it. Its face chalky and cracked. It didn’t have teeth and kept pulling back its lips to show rotten yellow gumwork. The eyes opaque in a way she’d seen before. She bent and looked closely into them. When she reached to touch its cheek it tried to bite her.

  Shit, she said, and hurried out.

  The room next door was the frilliest she’d ever seen. She could have walked into Hell’s furnace and been less surprised. Frilly curtains with frilly lace and frilly pillows on the bed and a frilly quilt. A fringed rug underfoot that you damn near sank in, it was so soft. There was a dark slab of furniture against one wall with a pair of fancy doors she creaked opened.

  Hell Mary. She’d never seen so many frilly dresses and of such colors that smelled so perty. It was like breathing a cloud. Violet and pink and bright yellow and roses sewn from lovely cloth. Blouses and skirts with stitching so fine you’d be able to see the skin underneath. Her plan, which she was still forming, would involve getting food and medicine and sneaking off to the children. Not bringing them back here, hell no. Maybe it was a town full of witches. She’d heard of those from Alice Hanover. She’d keep her guard up. Look at this perty dress here. Shorter, show a little calf-leg. She unhung it from its peg and slipped the dead crow hunter’s boots off and stuck the knife in the wall and shucked the pants she’d stolen from Shreveport and that floppy gray shirt with the knife slits and stood naked before the mirror stand.

  A knock came from the hall and she went and opened the door, uncaring of her nakedness.

  Oh, Mrs. Tate said, holding a glass. I came to see if you were thirsty, and if you wanted a bath while I got dinner ready.

  The gal took the glass and drank it.

  The bath’s this way, said the lady. Still naked, Evavangeline followed her down the candlelit hall past a line of closed doors into a room with pulled drapes and a tin washtub centered on a rug. There was a partition for changing and a toilet table with colored puff-bottles and powders and brushes and combs in neat rows. Evavangeline chewed her nails and watched the woman move boiling pots of water from the fireplace and pour them in and soon found herself steaming in sweet bubbles with Mrs. Tate behind her scrubbing her shoulders with a long brush and trickling hot oils on her neck and rubbing soap into her scalp.

  You need to let your hair grow out more, she said.

  Ummm, said the gal. She felt like going to sleep but the scar from Ned was starting to itch like hell. She tried to rise but Mrs. Tate’s hands held her down. Shhh, the old woman said.

  Meanwhile, the Christian Deputies were cantering their horses northward, a beatific Ambrose at point, Walton in the rear slouching in his saddle, when the distance revealed an uncovered farm wagon headed in their direction. As they drew nearer one another, the deputies noted that the pair of mules pulling the wagon wore straw sombreros, slits cut for their ears, the entire clattering operation driven by an elderly, thin Negro, his dark skin darker still from years of endless sun. He wore a Danbury hat—the exact style hung on Walton’s hatrack in his apartments in Philadelphia, the ousted leader realized. Fur-lined brim. Lizard skin band made from genuine South American iguanas.

  Ambrose raised his fist and the troop slowed and endured its own dustcloud as the wagon-driver clicked his teeth to halt his mules. Walton was aware that if something didn’t happen, he would be the first white man in the history of these United States to lose his command to a Negro. He imagined drawing his pistol and shooting Ambrose in the back of the head and telling his mother about it.

  Behind Ambrose, the remaining two deputies, Loon and Onan, walked their horses down the sloping land to within a few yards of where the elderly Negro had stopped his wagon. The two roads converged here into one, and the parties were going in the same direction. Walls of dense foliage would not permit both to pass at once, so one party would have to back up and let the other go. Whorls carved by countless wagon wheels—deep ruts, savage grooves cemented on the face of the land—indicated this juncture’s history in rainier times, submerged in water and likely impassable. Walton unclipped the rawhide safety thong from his sidearm and spurred Donny and sat alongside his fellow deputies.

  Back up, uncle, Ambrose ordered the wagon-driver. Let us thew.

  The colored man wore canvas hunting pants and a denim shirt faded almost white with silver snaps on the breast pockets. A red scarf tied at his neck. He held the reins loose in one hand and a short whip lash in the other.

  I ain’t gone tell ye agin, Ambrose said. He drew his pistol and tapped it on his thigh. Abscond, ye rickety old nigger.

  Ambrose, Walton said.

  Yet the fellow sat perfectly still. One of the mules began to
urinate, then the other followed suit.

  That’s bad luck for somebody, Onan pointed out. Two mules pissing same time facing east.

  For uncle here it is, Ambrose said. He pointed his pistol at the stranger. I’m gone count to five, he said. One. Two. Three. Four. Fi—

  Wait! It was Walton. He threw his leg over Donny’s saddle and dismounted. His hand in the air signaling “Attention,” he hurried over the ruts past Ambrose’s horse to the wagon and laid a casual hand on the brake and lowered his goggles to show how earnest his eyes were.

  Sir, he addressed the seated Negro, who didn’t look down at him. We Christian Deputies will certainly employ diplomacy when possible. But we are in a remarkable hurry here.

  No response.

  Sir! Walton repeated, knocking on the side of the wagon as if it were a door. Please, he said. Let us pass. This need not grow into a “scuffle.” There are several of us. You are a Negro, alone and unarmed. Quite elderly as well. We are most of us young, white and armed. We are trained, well-equipped professional lawmen on a mission to better this land for each us all, irregardless of the pigmentation of our skin. And, I hasten to add, we have already encountered two casualties today, witnessed by mine own eyes, two men murdered by yon fellow Negro. I worry in fact that he desires blood again. So I beseech you, sir: Let us pass.