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THE
WINDSTORM PASSES For Ardath Mayhar The winter I come to believe in
signs and omens was the baddest old winter we'd ever
seen. The winter I turned fifteen. It had come a rare snow that year,
and even rarer for East Texas, it had actually stuck to the ground and got
thick. Along came the wind, colder than ever, and it
turned the snow to ice. It was beautiful, like sugar and egg-white icing on a
cake, but it wasn't nothing to enjoy after the excitement of first seeing it
come down. I had to get out in it and do chores, and that made me wish for a
lot of sunshine and a time to go
fishing. Third day after it snowed and
things had gotten real icy, I was out cutting some firewood from the woodlot
and I found a madman in a ditch. I'd already chopped down a tree and
was trimming the limbs off of it, waiting for Papa who was coming across the
way with a cross cut so we could saw it up into firewood sizes. While I
was trimming I heard a voice. "I got a message. Get out of
this ditch, I got a message." Clutching the axe tight, I went
over and looked in the ditch, and there was a man. His face was as blue as my
Mama's eyes; Papa says they're so blue the sky looks white beside them, even on
the sky's best day. His long, oily hair had stuck to the ground and frozen there so that the clumped strands looked
like snakes or fat worms trying to find holes to crawl into. There were icicles
hanging off his eyelids and he was barefoot. I screamed for Papa. He tossed down
the saw and came running as fast as he could go on that ice. We got down in the
ditch, hauled the feller up, pulling out some of his frozen hair in the doing.
He was wearing a baggy old pair of faded black suit pants with the rear busted
out, and his butt was hanging free and bare. It was darker than his face,
looked a bit like a split, overripe watermelon gone dark in the sun. His feet
and hands were somewhere between the blue of his face and the blue-black
of his butt. The shirt he had on was three sizes too big, and when Papa and I
had him standing, the wind came a-whistling along and flapped the feller's
shirt around him till he looked like a scarecrow we was trying to poke in the
ground. We got him up to the house, laid
him out on the kitchen table. He looked like he'd had it. Didn't move, just
laid there, eyes closed, breathing slow. Then, all of a sudden, his eyes
snapped open and he shot out a bony hand and grabbed Papa by the coat collar.
He pulled himself to a sitting position until his face was right even with
Papa's and said, "I got a message from the Lord. You are doomed, brother,
doomed to the wind 'cause it's going to blow you away." Then he closed his
eyes, laid back down and let go of Papa's coat. "Easy there," Papa said.
But about that time the feller gave a shake, like he was going to have a rigor, then he went still as a
turnip. Papa felt for a pulse and put his ear to the feller's chest looking for
a heartbeat. From the expression on Papa's face, I could tell he hadn't found neither. "He dead, Papa?" "Couldn't get no deader,
son," Papa said, lifting his head from the feller's chest. Mama, who'd sort of been standing
off to the side watching, came over now. "You know him, Harold?" she
asked. "Think this is Hazel Onin's boy," Papa said. "The crazy boy?" "I just seen him the once, but
I think it's him. They had him on a leash out in the yard one summer, had this
colored feller leading him around, and the boy was running on all fours,
howling and trying to lift his leg to pee
on things. His pants were all wet." "How pitiful," Mama said. I knew of Hazel Onin's
crazy boy, but if he had a name I'd never heard it. He'd always been crazy, but
not so crazy at first that they couldn't let him run free. He was just
considered peculiar. When he was eighteen he got religion real bad, took to preaching. Then right after he turned
twenty he tried to rape this little high yeller gal he was teaching some Bible
verses to, and that's when the Onins throwed him in the attic room, locked and barred the windows.
If he'd been out of that room since that time, I'd never heard of it till now. I'm ashamed of it now, but when I
was twelve or thirteen, me and some of the other boys used to have to walk
by there on our way to and from
school, and the madman would holler out from his barred windows at us,
"Repent, 'cause you're all going to
have a bad fall," then he'd go to singing some old gospel song, and it
gave me the jitters 'cause there was an echo up there in that attic, and it
made it seem there was someone else inside singing along with him. Someone with
a voice as deep and trembly as Old Man Death ought to have. Johnny Clarence used to pull his
pants down, bend over and show his naked butt to the madman, and we'd follow
his lead on account of we didn't want to
be considered no chickens. Then we'd all take off out of there running, hoopin' and a hollerin', pulling
our pants and suspenders up as we ran. But we'd quit going there long time
back, as had almost everyone in town. They moved Main Street when the railroad
came through on the other side, and from then on the town built up over there.
They even tore down and rebuilt the school house on
that side, and there wasn't no need for us to come that way no more. We could cut shorter by going another way.
And after that, I mostly forgot about the madman prophet. "It's such a shame," Mama
said. "Poor boy." "It's a blessing, is what it
is," Papa said. "He don't look like he's been eating so good to me,
and I bet that's because the Onins ain't feeding him like they ought to. They figure him a
shame and a curse from God, and they've treated him like it was his fault his
head ain't no good ever since he was born." "He was dangerous,
Harold," Mama said. "Remember that little high yeller girl?" "Ain't
saying he ought to have been invited to a church social. But they didn't have to
treat him like an animal." "Guess it's not ours to
judge," Mama said. "Damn sure don't matter
now," Papa said. "What do you think he meant
about that thing he said, Papa?" I asked. "About the wind and
all?" "Didn't mean nothing, son. Just crazy talk. Go on out and hitch up the wagon and I'll
get him wound up in a sheet. We'll take him back to the Onins. Maybe they'll want to stuff
him and put him in the attic window so folks can see him as they walk or ride
by. Or they could charge two bits for folks to come inside and look at him.
Kind of pull his arm with a string so it looks like he's waving at them." "That's quite enough,
Harold," Mama said. "Don't talk like that in front of the boy." Papa grumbled something, went out
of the room for a sheet, and I went out to the barn and hitched the mules up. I
drove the wagon up to the front door, went in to help Papa carry the body out. Not that it really took both of us.
He was as light as a big, empty cornhusk. But somehow, the two of us
carrying him seemed a lot more respectable than just tossing him over a
shoulder and slamming him down in the wagon bed. We took the body over to the Onins, and if they was broke up
about it, I missed the signs. They looked like they'd just finally gotten some
stomach tonic to work, and had made that long put off and desired trip to the outhouse. Papa didn't say nothing
stern to them, though I expected him to, since he wasn't short on honest words.
But I figure he didn't see no need in it now. Mrs. Onin
stood in the doorway all the time, didn't come out to the wagon bed while the
body was there. After Mr. Onin unwound the sheet and
took a look at the madman's face,
said what a sad day it was and all, he asked us if we'd mind putting the body
in the toolshed. We did, and when we got back to the
wagon Mrs. Onin was waiting by it. Mr. Onin offered us a dollar for bringing the body home,
but of course, Papa wouldn't take it. Before we climbed up on the wagon,
Mrs. Onin said, "He'd been yelling all morning
from upstairs, saying how an angel from God wearing a suit coat and a top hat,
had brought him a message he was supposed to pass on. Kept sayin'
an angel was giving him a test, see if he deserved heaven after what he done to
that little girl." Papa went ahead and climbed on the
wagon, took hold of the lines. With his head, he motioned me up. "Then we didn't hear nothing
no more," Mr. Onin said. "I went up there
to check on him and he'd pulled the
bars out of one of the windows and got out. I don't reckon how he did that, as
he'd never been able to do it before, and them bars was as sturdy as the day I
put them in, no rotten wood around the sills or nothing." Papa had taken out his pocketknife
and tobacco bar, and he was cutting him a chew off it. "Reckon you went
right then to the sheriff to tell him
your boy run off," Papa said, and there was that edge to his voice, like when he finds me
peeing out back too close to the house. "Naw,"
Mr. Onin said looking at the ground. "I didn't.
Figured cold as he was, he'd come on back." "Don't matter none now, does
it?" Papa said. "No," Mr. Onin said. "He's out of his misery now." "Thems
as true a words as you've spoke," Papa said. "I'll be getting your sheet
back to you," Mr. Onin said. "Don't want it," Papa
said. He clucked up the mules and we started off. When we were out of earshot of the
house, I said, "Papa, you really think they thought that crazy feller
would go back because it was cold?" "Why in hell would he want to
go back to that attic? I don't reckon it was all that warm. I figure they
thought he'd freeze and they'd be rid of him." We didn't say anything else until
we got home, then wasn't none of the talking about the
madman or the Onins. Mama didn't even mention it
after she saw Papa's face. Just before supper, Papa went out
on the porch to smoke his pipe, and I went out to the barn to toss the mules
and milk cow some hay. I was out there tossing and smelling that animal smell,
thinking how it reminded me of my whole life, that smell. Reminded me of Mama
and Papa, warm nights with very little breeze, cold nights with the fire stoked
up big and warm, late suppers, tall tales in front of the fireplace, standing
on the porch or looking out the windows at the morning, noon or night, spring,
summer, winter or fall. And that smell, always there, like a friend who
had on some peculiar, if not bad smelling, toilet water. It was in the
floorboards of the house, in the yard, thick in the barn. A
smell that even now moves me backwards and forwards in time. So there I was, throwing hay,
thinking this fine life would go on forever, and all of a sudden I felt it
before it happened. I quit tossing hay, turned to look
out the barn door. It was like I was looking at a painting, things had gone so
still. The sky had turned yellow. The late birds quit singing and the
mules and the milk cow turned their heads to look out of doors too. Way off I heard it, a sound like a
locomotive making the grade, burning that timber. Only there wasn't a track
within ten miles of us. Outside the sky went from yellow to black, from still
to windy. Pine straw, dust, and all manner of things began whipping by. I knew
what was happening: twister. I dropped the pitchfork, dove for
the inside of an old shovel scoop mule sled, and no sooner had I hit face down
and put my hands over my head, then it hit. I caught a glimpse of a cow flying
by, legs splayed like she thought she could stop the tug of the wind easy as
she could stop the tug of a rope. Then the cow was gone and the sled started to move. After that, everything started happening
so quickly I'm not certain what I saw. Lots of things flying by, and I could
hardly breathe. The sled might have gone as high as thirty feet, 'cause when I
came down it was hard. Hadn't been for the ice, I'd probably have been driven
into the ground like a cork in a bottle. But the sled hit the ice and started
sliding, throwing up dirty, hard snow on either side of me. Ice pieces hit me
in the face, then the sled fetched up against something solid, a stump
probably, and I went flying out of it, hit the ice, whirled around and around,
came to rest in that ditch where I'd
found the madman. I passed out for a while, and I
dreamed. Dreamed I was in the sled again, flying through the air, and there was
our house, lifting up from the ground, floor and all. It flew right past me,
rising fast. In the brief instant it moved in front of me, I saw Mama. She was
standing at the window. All the glass was blown out, and she was clinging
to the sill with both hands. Her eyes were as big and blue as her china saucers,
and her red hair had come undone and was blowing and whipping around her like a
brush fire. The house shot on up, and when I
looked up to see, there wasn't nothing but whirling blackness with little
chunks of wood and junk disappearing into it. "Mama," I said, and I
must have said it a lot of times, 'cause that's what woke me up. The sound of
my voice calling Mama. I tried to stand, but my ankle
wasn't having it. It hurt like hell, and when I looked down, I saw my boot and sock had been ripped off by the blow, and the
ankle was as big as a coiled cottonmouth snake. I put a hand on the edge of the
ditch, dug my fingers through the ice and pulled myself up, taking some of the
skin off my naked foot as I did. It was so cold the flesh had frozen to the
ground and it had peeled off when I moved, like sweetgum
bark. Once I was out of the ditch, I
started crawling across the ice, dragging my useless foot behind me. Little
chunks of skin came off my palms, so I had to get down and pull myself forward
on my coat-sleeved forearms. I hadn't gone far before I found
Papa. He was sitting in his rocking chair, and in one hand he held his pipe and
it was still smoking. The porch the chair had been sitting on was gone, but
Papa was rocking gently in what remained of the wind. And the pitchfork I'd
tossed before diving into the sled was sticking out of his chest like it had growed there. I didn't see a drop of blood. His eyes were
open and staring, and every time that chair rocked forward, he seemed to look
and nod at me. Behind Papa, where the house ought
to have been, wasn't nothing. It was like it hadn't never been built. I quit crawling and started crying.
Did that till there wasn't nothing in me to cry, and
the cold started making me so numb I just wanted to lay there and freeze at Papa's feet like an old dog. I felt like
if I wasn't his killer, I was at least a helper, having tossed down the very
pitchfork that had murdered him. It started to rain little ice pellets, and somehow the pain of those things
pounding on me, gave me the will to crawl
toward a heap of hay that had been tossed there by the wind. By the time I got
to the pile and looked back, Papa wasn't rocking no more. Those runners had froze to the
ground and his black hair had turned white from the ice that had stuck to him. I worked my way into the hay and
tried to pull as much of it over me as I could. Doing that wore me out, and I
fell asleep wondering about Mama, wondering what had happened to her, hoping she was alive. The wind picked up again, took most
of my hay away, but by then I didn't care. I awoke remembering that I'd had
that dream about Mama and the house again. Even though I didn't have much hay
on me, it didn't seem so cold anymore. I figured it was either warming up, or I
was getting used to it. Course, wasn't neither of them things. I was freezing
to death, and would have too, if not for Mr. Parks and his boys. Mr. Parks was our nearest neighbor,
about three miles east. It turned out he had been chopping wood when the sky
turned yellow. Later he told me about it. and he said
it was as strange as a blue-eyed hound dog, and unlike any twister he'd ever
seen. Said the yellow sky went black, then this dark
cloud grew a tail and came a-wagging out of the sky like a happy pup, the tail
getting thicker as it dipped. When it touched down he figured the place it hit
was right close to our farm, so he hitched up a wagon and came on out. It was slow going for him and his
two boys, on account of the ice and them having to stop now and then to clear
the road of blown-over trees. But they made it to our place about dark, and Mr.
Parks said first thing he saw was Papa in that rocker. He said it was like the
stem of Papa's pipe was pointing to where I lay, half in, half
out of some hay. They figured me for dead at first,
I looked so bad. But when they saw I was alive, they loaded me in the wagon,
covered me in some old feed sacks and a couple half-wet blankets and started
out of there. Turned out that foot of mine was
broke bad. The doctor came out to the
Parks place, set it, and didn't charge me a cent. He said he owed Papa from
last fall for a bushel of taters, but I knew that was just a friendly lie. Doc
Ryan hadn't never owed nobody nothing. Mr. and Mrs. Parks offered me a
place to stay after the funeral, but I told them I'd go back to our place and
try to make a go of it there. Johnny Parks, who used to whip the
hell out of me twice a week on them weeks when we both managed to go a full week to school, made me a
pair of solid crutches out of hickory, and I went to Papa's funeral on them.
Mama, as if there was something to my dream, wasn't never
found, and for that matter, they couldn't hardly find no pieces of the house.
There was plenty of barn siding around, but of the
house there was only a few floorboards, some wood shingles and some broken
glass. Maybe it's silly, but I like to think
that old storm just come and got her and hauled her off to a better place, like
that little old gal in that book The
Wizard of Oz. Mr. Parks made Papa a tombstone out
of a piece of river slate, chiseled some nice words on it: HERE LIES
HAROLD FOGG, KILT BY A
TORNADER, AND HERE
LIES THE MEMRY OF GLENDA FOGG WHO WAS
CARRIED OFF BY THE SAME
TORNADER AND WASN'T
NEVER FOUND. NOT EVEN
THE PIECES. Beneath that was some dates on when
they was born and died, and a line about them being survived by one son, Buster
Fogg, meaning me, of course. Over the protest of Mr. and Mrs.
Parks, I had them take me out to the place and I set me up a tent there. They
left me a lot of food and some hand-me-down clothes from their boys, then they went off saying they'd be back to check on me
right regular. Mr. Parks even offered me some money and the loan of his mule,
but I said I had to think on it. This tent Mr. Parks had given me
was a good one, and I managed to get
around well enough on my crutches to gather
barn siding and use what tools I could find to build a floor in it. I could
have got Mr. Parks and his boys to do that for me, but I couldn't bring myself
to ask them to, not after all they'd
done. And besides, I had my pride. Matter of fact, that was about all I had
right then. That and the place. Well, it took me a couple of days
what should have taken a few hours, but I got the tent fixed up real good and
cozy finally. But it wasn't no replacement for the
house and Mama and Papa. I'd have even liked to have heard them fussing over
how much firewood Papa should have laid in, which was one of them things he was
always a little lazy on, and was finally glad to pass most of the job along to
me. I could just imagine Mama telling him as she
looked at the last few sticks of stove wood, "I told you so." On the morning after I'd spent my
first night on my finished floor, I got out to take a real good look at things, and see what I could manage on
crutches. There were dead chickens lying all
about, like feather dusters, pieces of wood and one mule lying on his back,
legs sticking up in the air like a table blowed over. Well, wasn't none of this something
I hadn't already seen, but now with the flooring in, and my immediate comfort
attended to, I found I just couldn't
face picking up dead chickens and burning a mule carcass. I went back inside the tent and
felt sorry for myself, as that's all there was to do in there, besides eat, and
I'd done that till I was about to pop. I didn't even have a book to reread, as
all them had got blowed away with the house. About a week went by, and I'd maybe
got half the chickens picked up and tossed off in the ditch by the
woodlot, and gotten the mule burned to nothing besides bones, when this
slick-looking feller in a buckboard showed up. "Howdy, young feller," he
said, climbing down from his rig. "You must be Buster Fogg." I admitted I was, and up close I
saw that snazzy black suit and narrow brim hat he had on were even snappier
than they'd looked from a distance. The hat and suit were as black as fresh
charcoal and the pants had creases in them sharp enough to cut your throat. And
the feller was all smiles. He looked to have more teeth than Main Street had
bricks. "Glad I caught you home,"
he said, and he took off his hat and held it over his chest as if contemplating
a prayer. "Whats
it I can do for you?" I asked. "Maybe you'd like to come in the tent,
get out of this cold." "No, no. What I have to say
won't take but a moment. My name is Purdue. Jack Purdue. I'm the banker from
town." Well, right off I knew what it was
and I didn't want to hear it, but I
knew I was going to anyway. "Your father's bill has come
due, son, and I hate it something awful, and I know it's a bad time and all,
but I'm going to need that money by about . . ." He stopped for a moment
to look generous, "say noon tomorrow. Least half." "I ain't
got a penny, Mr. Purdue," I said. "Papa had the money, but everything
got blowed away in the storm. If you could just give
some time—" He put his hat on and looked real
sad about things, almost like it was his farm he was losing. "I'm afraid not, son. It's an
awful duty I got, but it's my duty." I told him again about the money
blowing away, how Papa had saved it up from selling stuff during the farm
season, doing odd jobs around and all, and that I could do the same, providing
he gave my leg time to heal so I could get a job. Just to work on his sympathy some, I then went on to tell him the whole horrible truth about how Papa was killed and
Mama blowed away like so much outhouse paper, and
when I got through I figured I'd told it real good, 'cause his eyes looked a
little moist. "That," he said, not
hardly able to speak, "is without a doubt, the saddest story I've ever
heard. And of course I knew all about it, son, but somehow, hearing it from
you, the last survivor of the Fogg family, makes it
all the more dreadful." He kind of choked up there on the
end of his words, and I figured I had him pretty good, so I throwed
in how us Foggs had pride and all, and that I'd never
let a due bill go unpaid, if he'd just give me the time to raise the money. Well, he told me he was tore all to
hell up about it, but business was business, sad story or not. And as he wiped
some of the water out of his eyes with the back of his hand, he told me he
would give me until tomorrow evening instead of noon, because he reckoned
someone who'd been through what I had deserved a little more time. "But that ain't
enough," I said. "I'm sorry, son, that's the
best I can do, and that goes against the judgment of the bank. I'm sticking my
neck out to do that." "You are the bank,
Purdue," I said. "Who you fooling? It ain't me. We all know you're the bank." "I understand your grief, your
torment," he said, just like one of the characters from some of them Dime
Novels Papa bought from time to time, "but business is business." "You said that." "Yes I did." With that,
Mr. Purdue turned and walked back to his buckboard. He called out to me as I stood there leaning defeated on my crutches. "I
tell you, son, that is the saddest story I've ever heard, and I've heard some.
Tragic. This will hang over my head
from here on out, right over my head," he showed me exactly where it would
be hanging with his hand, "until my dying day." He stood there with one foot up on
the buckboard step a moment, looking as downcast as a young rooster without any
hens, then he climbed up and cracked the whip gently over the heads of his
horses. There must have been some pretty heavy tears in his eyes as he left,
'cause when he turned the buckboard around, the left wheels rolled right over
Papa's grave. My farming days were over before
they even got started. And I'll tell you, right then and there,
I decided I wasn't going to pick up
another dead chicken to make the place look nicer. In fact, I went over to the
ditch, got the ones I throwed down there out and
chunked them around sorts like they had been. Then I went back to my tent and
wished I hadn't burned that old dead mule up. The smartest thing to do would have
been to go on over to Mr. and Mrs.
Parks, even if it did take me all damned day on them crutches, but I just
couldn't. Us Foggs have our pride. I decided to set
out for town, get me a job there, make my own way.
Surely there was something I could do till my leg healed up and I got me a
solid job. I figured if I started early, like
tomorrow morning, I could maybe make town by nightfall, crutches or not. I'd
probably fall down and bust it a few times, but that didn't matter none. Well, as I said, us Foggs are proud, and maybe just a little bit stupid, so
next morning I set out as planned, leaving the tent behind, carrying with me
some hard bread, jerked meat, and dried fruit in a sack. I must have fell down a half a
dozen times before I got to the road, but then I could crutch along better,
'cause there was a lot less ice there. By noon my underarms were so sore
from the rubbing of them crutches that they were bleeding and making blisters
that kept popping as I went. Stopping about then, I sat down on
a rock and my coattails, ate me some bread and jerky, and fretted things
over. While I was fretting, I heard this sound and looked up. It was bells on a harness I had
heard, and the harness was attached to eight big mules pulling a bright red
wagon driven by a big black man wearing a long, dark coat and a top hat. When
the sun hit his teeth they flashed like a pearl-handled revolver. As the wagon made a little curve in
the road, I got a glimpse at the side, and I could see there was a cage fixed
there, balancing out the barrels of water and supplies on the other side. At first I thought what was in the
cage was a deformed colored feller, but when it got closer, I seen it was some
kind of animal covered in hair. It was about the ugliest,
scariest damned thing I'd ever seen. Right then I was feeling a might
less proud than I had been that morning, so I got them crutches under me and
hobbled out into the road and waved one hand at the man on the wagon. The wagon slowed and pulled
alongside of me. The driver yelled, "Whoa, you old ugly mules," and the
harness bells ceased to shake. I could see the animal in the cage
real good now, but I still couldn't figure on what it was. There was some
yellow words painted above the cage that said THE MAGIC WAGON, and to the right
of the cage was a little sign with some fancy writing on it that read: Magic Tricks, Trick Shooting, Fortune Telling, Wrestling Ape, Side
Amusements, Medicine For What Ails You, And All At Reasonable Prices. Sounded pretty good to me. "You look like you could use a
ride, white boy," the big colored man said. "Yes sir, I could at
that," I said. "You don't say 'yes sir' to a
nigger." I turned to see who had said that, and there was this feller
standing in faded, red long johns and moccasins with blond hair down to his
shoulders and a skimpy little blond mustache over his lip. He had his arms
crossed, holding his elbows against the cold. He'd obviously come out of the
back of the wagon, but he'd walked out so quiet I hadn't even known he was
there till he spoke. When I didn't say nothing, he added, "This here's my wagon. He just works
for me. I say who rides and who don't, and I say you don't." "I got some jerky, canned
taters and beans I can trade for a ride, and I'll sit up there on the
seat." "If you was riding, you sure
would," the blond man said. "But you ain't
riding." He turned back to the wagon and I noticed the flap on his long
johns was down. I snickered just a little, and he turned around to stare
at me. He had eyes like a couple of gun barrels, cold and ugly grey. "I
don't need no beans or sweet taters," he said suddenly, then
he started back to the wagon. "He can ride up here with me
if he's got a mind to," said the colored man. The white feller spun around and
came stomping back. "What did you say?" "I said he could ride up here
with me if he's got a mind to," the colored man said, moving his lips real
slow like, as if he was talking to an idiot. "It's too cold for a boy to
be out here, especially one on crutches." "You're getting mighty uppity
for a nigger," the white feller said. "Mighty uppity for a nigger who
works for me." "Maybe I is," the colored
feller said. "And it worries me something awful, Mister Billy Bob. I get
so worried abouts it I can't get me no good sleep at
night. I wake up wondering if Mister Billy Bob is put out with me, and if I
truly is getting uppity." Mister Billy Bob pointed his finger
at the colored feller and shook it. "Keep it up, nigger. Just keep it up
and you're going to wake up with a crowd of buzzards around you. Hear?" "I hear," the colored
feller said. It was almost a yawn. Billy Bob started back for the wagon again,
gave me a glimpse of his exposed butt, turned and came back. He shook his
finger at the colored feller again. "Albert," he said, "you and
me, we going to have to have us a
serious Come To Jesus meeting, get some things straight. Like who's the nigger
and who ain't." "I do need some pointers on
that, Mister Billy Bob. I get a trifle confused sometime." Billy Bob stood there for a moment like he was going to stare Albert down off the wagon seat,
but he finally gave it up. "All right, you," he said to me. "You can ride, but it's going
to cost you them beans and taters, hear?" I nodded. This time Billy Bob turned and went
into the wagon, the moon of his butt my last sight of him, the slamming of the
door my last sound. I turned and looked up at Albert.
He was leaning down with a big hand extended. Just before I took it, I got me
another look at the critter in the cage, and when he looked at me he peeled
back his lips to show his teeth, like
maybe he was smiling. When I was on the seat beside
Albert, he said, "That Mister Billy Bob's going to need to get them buttons fixed on the seat of his drawers, ain't he?" We laughed at that. After we got moving good, Albert
said, "You keep them beans and taters, boy. Taters upset my stomach, and
beans they make Mister Billy Bob fart something awful. Just ain't
no being around him." "That's good of you to let me keep them," I said, "
'cause I ain't got no beans or taters. All I got is
some hard bread and some jerked meat." Albert let out a roar, like that
was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. I could tell right then and there he
didn't have no real respect for Billy Bob. "That critter in the
cage?" I asked, taking a long shot. "Is that some kind of bear what
caught on fire or something?" Albert laughed again. "Naw, it ain't no
bear. That there is a jungle ape, comes from
the same place as all us coloreds. They calls him
a chimpanzee. Name's Rot Toe on account of he got him some kind of disease once
and one of the toes on his right foot rotted off. Least that's what the feller
who sold him to Billy Bob said." I remembered the sign I'd read on
the side of the wagon. "Wrestling Ape," I said. "There you got it,"
Albert said. I found a place for the crutches
and the food bag, then I leaned back with my hands in
my lap. "You look a might bushed,
little peckerwood. You wants to lay your head against my shoulder to rest, you go right ahead." "No thanks," I said. But
we hadn't gone too far down the road when I just couldn't keep my eyes open no
more and I realized just how tired I really was. I lolled my head on Albert's
big shoulder. I could smell the clean wool of his coat. And wasn't no time
until I was asleep. Quit loitering around here. I don't
want to see your face ... until next Thursday, February 09, when we'll present
another totally free story by Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale! "The Windstorm Passes" was originally published in Spring 1986 in Pulphouse, and was later included in By Bizarre Hands, a collection published by Avon Books. "The Windstorm Passes" © 1986 Joe R. Lansdale. All rights reserved. |
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