Ma is big-boneded, same as me and Pap, and he always tolt me, “Your ma ain’t no delicate flower of a woman.” One or two of her mannish punches had me feeling wobbly and top-heavy.
Stanky had had ’nough of Ma’s nonsense and went from tugging on Ma to working herself ’twixt us and going at Ma with more and more worrisome growls and the showing of more and more teeth.
Ma reared back to throw a jab right at my face. Afore it hit, though, Stanky jumped up and, careful as she could, grabbed holt of Ma’s wrist and gentle pult Ma’s arm down.
Ma tried shaking Stanky off, but Stanky wasn’t having none of it; she bit into Ma’s wrist harder and harder until Ma didn’t have no choice but to quit going at me and start paying ’tention to the dog that was getting closer and closer to drawing blood or breaking a bone.
Ma falled into a ball and Stanky set in to doing that heavy rump shaking and tail wagging that dogs do when they’s looking to ’pologize for something they done. She licked all of Ma’s tears and wouldn’t quit even though Ma kept trying to wave her off. Finally, Ma give in and took Stanky’s bathing whilst weeping something turrible.
All I could do was stand next to ’em with my hands hanging down, big useless sacks-o’-nothing at my sides.
She said, “Thank goodness you’s old ’nough to look after yourself.”
I frowned and jus’ ’bout said, “No, I ain’t,” but thought better of it.
I could see I was gonna have to do a lot of pondering on this ’cause things couldn’t get much worst with Pap laying dead and cold on a table in Doc’s house and our world coming ’part at the seams.
It was hard telling one day from the next. The only thing that kept me and Ma from losing our minds was working in the fields. Whilst everything else ’round us was changing and hard to think about, the fields was always the same, always something you could count on.
Things got turned upside-around and ’stead of looking forward to sunset, I wished the sun would get stuck right at noon and stay there ’cause the fields was the only time I didn’t start thinking ’bout Pap’s undoing.
I don’t ’member ’zactly how long it was afore I answered a knock at the door and was surprised to see Sheriff Jackson standing on the porch.
“Morning, Sheriff.”
“Morning, Little Charlie.”
The sheriff looked me up and down.
“I noticed the other day you done growed a lot, boy.”
“Yes, sir.”
He grabbed my arm and whistled. “You’s stronger than most full-growed men, ain’t you?”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Big as your arms is, it wouldn’t take much for you to knock down a small tree with one swing, would it?”
“I ain’t never tried, sir.”
“Yup, big as your arms is, I bet it wouldn’t.”
Most times when someone’s talking ’bout how growed and strong I look, I have to fight not to smile nor blush; them things jus’ ruins the growed picture of me that my size paints and show I ain’t nothing but a kid. But something ’bout all these questions the sheriff was batting ’gainst me felt different. Smiling nor blushing wasn’t nowhere in my mind.
Sheriff Jackson said, “Little Charlie, I hope you won’t mind riding ’long and showing me the place in the woods where this tragedy befell your pa.”
The uneasiness that was churning ’round in my belly started making itself heavier.
Me and Pap had rode out miles afore he spotted the maple he said would be perfect for finishing the cabinet we’d been working on for months for Mr. Dalton.
Then it hit me; we’d gone so far out that the tree Pap picked must’ve been on the Tanner plantation!
“Sheriff Jackson! Sir! I swear on my ma’s head that we didn’t know we was stealing no one’s wood. Pap wouldn’t never do nothing to rile up Mr. Tanner. We seent the whuppings he give to folks who’s poached on his land. Pap wouldn’t do nothing to cross him.”
That was the swear-’fore-God truth. Pap had had a bad time out at the Tanners’ with their o’erseer, Cap’n Buck, who was the man that done the whuppings we was all forced to watch.
Word would get sent out that everyone from all ’round the county need come to the Tanner plantation and watch the cap’n tear the hide offen some poor farmer who was ’cused of shooting one the Tanners’ deers or pheasants, or fishing in the stream that run ’crost their land.
Pap said as harsh as Cap’n Buck was on the white farmers near the Tanner plantation, he was even worst on the slaves that dared cross him.
The sheriff grabbed my arm again and said, “This ain’t ’bout no wood stealing, boy. You best jus’ come ’long with us.”
Us?
I followed the sheriff out the front door and there was five mounted men waiting on me. Petey the dimwit was one of ’em and he was holting on to the reins of a old riderless mare.
This was a posse, a sad little one, but if you’s seent a posse afore, it ain’t hard to rec-a-nize one the second time ’round.
I said, “I can go get Spangler and ride him, sir.”
The sheriff said, “Well, Little Charlie, if it ain’t no trouble, why don’t you climb on up next to Petey.”
Now there wasn’t no doubt, this was ’bout stealing wood! Why else would they have a posse already brung together? Why else would they think I was gonna try and run off and give me a lame horse so’s I couldn’t?
My legs turnt to stone. What if the punishment for stealing lumber wasn’t getting whupped; what if it was to get hunged?
I looked for a way out, but there wasn’t gonna be no escaping; the sheriff was smarter than he was letting on. I’d falled into his snare.
The way the posse was lined up had the sheriff and one the other men up front and me and Petey riding abreast in the middle whilst the other two men trailed behind.
Petey wouldn’t look me in the eye whilst I clumb up on the horse’s back. Me and him had us a falling-out a while afore and he was still vexed.
I give the reins a tug to pull ’em from his hands, but Petey snatched ’em back.
He yelled, “He’s trying to bust loose, Sheriff Jackson! Can’t one a y’all jus’ go ’head and wound him?”
The sheriff said, “He ain’t trying nothing, Petey. You remember what I said; we’s all got a job here and yourn ain’t nothing but to holt on to them reins.”
Petey was real disappointed. He said in that whining singing-a-song voice of hisn, “Well, couldn’t I jus’ shoot him in the foot and we wouldn’t have to worry ’bout him running at all?”
The sheriff clumb down from his horse and come back to Petey.
“Now you look here, Petey Timmons. You ain’t got no pistol, do you? I tolt your ma you could ride ’long only if you wasn’t carrying no weapon.”
Petey reached in his coat pocket and pulled out this old six-shooter. He passed it down to the sheriff. The only thing on it that wasn’t rusty was the wood grips.
“Sorry, Sheriff. Don’t say nothing to Ma; she don’t know I brung it. She don’t even know I got one.”
The sheriff looked the gun o’er, seent it didn’t have no bullets and that the trigger was so rusty it wouldn’t budge. He handed the piece of rust back to Petey.
Sheriff Jackson winked at me and said, “Listen here, Petey, you gotta promise me, if Little Charlie do try bolting, you gonna throw this six-shooter at him hard as you can.”
That set the other men to guffawing and chuckling. Petey laughed right ’long with ’em, never knowing the joke was on him.
I showed ’em which way to head out.
For the next four miles that we was riding into the forest, my mind didn’t come offen the hangman’s noose once. Everything I ever ’membered ’bout folks hanging someone was running through my head o’er and o’er. Including the hanging of Jesse Huddleston that Mr. Tanner had made everyone come see.
After while the sheriff said, “You sure this the right way, boy?”
“It ain’t fa
r from here, sir. Can’t no one blame us for not knowing the Tanner plantation come out this far, can they?”
“Naw, Little Charlie, I done tolt you this ain’t got nothing to do with no lumber stealing. From my reckoning, this here’s Injun land. Jus’ hesh up.”
The feeling of relief that sprung up in my heart didn’t rest there for more than a beat or two, ’cause if what the sheriff was saying was true, why was I being rode out here in the middle of a posse?
I seent the maple from ’bout a hunnert yard off.
I swallowed hard and said, “It happened right up there, Sheriff Jackson.”
Them words was a bell a-tolling; my posse, which had got more tireder and more draggish with each mile we rode, perked up right and proper.
The two men that was following stopped slouching in their saddles and watched me sharp-eyed. Petey helt on to the barrel of his pistol and shook it at me like it was a hatchet, ready to cleave me clean in half.
We got to the tree and tears started welling up in my eyes. Pap’s blood was still pooled up on the ground where he falled.
The sheriff turned in his saddle and said, “OK, Little Charlie, tell me once more ’gain ’bout what happened to your pa.”
I was beginning to think the rep-a-tation the sheriff had ’mongst folks was wrong. Word is he’s a good, honest, and mostly smart man, but to me he was showing signs of being a bit slow. This musta been the third time he axed me to tell what had happened to Pap.
I’s real patient when I tolt him again. “Pap picks out this here maple as the perfect size and age. He got the big ax and sent me to pull some handsaws offen Spangler for trimming.
“I stops for a second to see how far Pap’s gonna drive that ax in with his first blow.”
Ma says the way Pap swings his ax is one of them things that makes life worth going through; says she probably wouldn’t-a never married Pap if she hadn’t run ’crost him in the woods, hacking hunks outta trees. Once she felt how the earth shook after Pap tore into a tree, she didn’t have no choice but to marry him, ’cording to her. Which is peculiar, but what that growed folks do ain’t?
I tolt the sheriff, “Pap raises the ax up, slides his right hand ’long the handle, takes two practice swings, then slams the ax at the tree like he’s gonna knock it o’er into the next district.”
That had been when time started moving slow, so slow that I didn’t have no choice but to watch near everything.
I tolt the sheriff, “The ax whistled as Pap swung it at the tree, the sun hit it, and it wasn’t nothing but a flashing silver blur. But then …”
My breath got snagged in my throat.
“Go on, boy.”
“Then the ax hit the tree and ’stead of making that good solid booming chunk it always made previous, Pap’s ax made the same sound the blacksmith does when he’s using his hammer to bang a hot shoe on a anvil.
“Then the tree done the dangdest thing. Pap hit it so hard that it squeals and throws a ball of sparks and fire like it was ’bout to bust out in flame!”
The sheriff, who’d been listening and nodding his head, butted me off. “Right there, Little Charlie! Right there’s one ’em things that don’t make no sense. I ain’t saying you lying, boy, but how in tarnation’s a tree gonna throw sparks?”
“I don’t know, sir, it jus’ did. Then the ax handle come ’live; it shakes and cracks into long skinny splinters, Pap screams, and his hands come flying off the handle like it had turnt itself into a lightning bolt.”
I ain’t never afore heard Pap cry out from hurting. Even when his left little toe and the one next to it got sawed off by Doc without no kind of numbing and Pap hadn’t made a peep.
Pap’s cry was a powerful disturbing memory. Disturbing and fresh. It was part of what was making me jump out my sleep. It made me wish I was deef.
The tears started fighting their way back in my eyes, but I wasn’t ’bout to let the dimwit and them other men see me cry.
I took a deep breath and pretended I was ’bout to cough.
“Then, sir, the head of the ax bounced off that maple clean and crisp as a flat stone skipping off a pond. It kissed itself off Pap’s forehead with a horrible sound, then whistled on off into the woods.”
Sheriff Jackson said, “It’s important we find that ax-head, boy. Which way did it go?”
“I didn’t see where it went, sir; all I seent was how Pap’s backbone went ramrod stiff, standing him straight as a soldier; he froze that way for a bit, then keeled o’er backward the same way a rotted-out hunnert-year-old oak would. Didn’t nothing bend on him; he jus’ falled straight back like his foots was hinged to the ground.”
“Then what?”
“That was all, sir. I put Pap ’crost Spangler’s back and rode fast as I could back to Possum Mo—”
The sheriff jumped my talking one more time. “That! That’s another one ’em things that jus’ causes questions to be raised, boy. You say you and your pa was out here alone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You and your ma didn’t ’range for no one to be waiting in the trees?”
“What? Waiting in the trees? No, sir. Why would we—”
“Explain this to me, then, Little Charlie Bobo. Big Charlie, may his soul rest in peace, was six and a half feet tall and weighed three hunnert and fifty pound if he weighed a ounce.
“Ain’t no doubt you’s huge for your age, but folks is having the turriblest of times seeing how a twelve-year-old boy’s gonna lift that much deadweight. ’Specially how you could lift your pa high ’nough to lay him ’cross the back of a horse? That’s a job for at least two men. Two big, strapping men.”
It hadn’t never crossed my mind.
“I can’t say for sure, sir. All I know was when I heard Pap cry out, then seent him still and quiet on the ground, staring into the heavens, something come o’er me that got me so scairt and worried that I’d-a done anything to help him, sir. So I bent o’er and picked him up. He didn’t weigh nothing to me. Even if Spangler wasn’t there, I could’ve run all four miles back with him in my arms.”
The sheriff said to the three men and Petey, “Y’all get on down from them horses and start looking ’round for that ax-head.”
He turned back to me. This time when he talked, he’d quit being so mad at me.
“Son, you got to understand why we got questions ’bout what happened out here. There wasn’t no witnesses and … well … to be blunt, word’s going ’round that your pa had come into some money and was fixing to run off to Cincinnati with …”
The sheriff looked mighty discom-fitted.
“Well … with someone who wasn’t your ma. You saying you didn’t know nothing ’bout that?”
It wouldn’t-a been no more surprising if Spangler sprouted wings and flew off to scare mice under the queen of England’s chair!
Pap running off to somewhere called Seen-Seen-At-Eee?
The sheriff seent his words knocked me into a cocked hat.
He said, “We also heard there was some sharp talk and some blows passed ’twixt your ma and pa at the Tanners’ store in the past weeks. What was it that got your ma so vexed at him?”
He was right. Ma was sore disappointed that the store wouldn’t give us no more credit until we paid down on what we owed. She started going at Pap ’bout how come he ain’t been paying what he was s’pose to and how close us and our animals was to starving and how she shouldn’t-a never married him.
“Yes, sir, Ma was right vexed with him. I didn’t have no feelings one way or the ’nother. I knows best than to put my nose in growed folks’ business.”
The sheriff said, “Little Charlie, you put them things together and even Petey thinks it’s fishy that your pa was kilt right after him and your ma near come to blows. Especially out here in the wilderness with no one to say what really happened.”
What really happened?
How plug-stupid could I be?
The sheriff was fitting my neck for the noose, all right, b
ut it wasn’t for stealing none of Mr. Tanner’s lumber. He was looking to prove I’d murdered my own pap!
* * *
There wasn’t a whole lot of talking done when the posse took me home. But the sheriff did make Petey turn a-loose the reins of the lame mare I’d rode out on and give ’em to me. I guess if I got the urge to bust loose now, me and the lame mare could waddle and limp our way into the woods.
When we got to our cabin, the sheriff said, “OK, Little Charlie, I wants Judge Byrd to go out with me and look at that area. Y’all ain’t planning on going nowhere, are you?”
Where would we go? In all my twelve years, I ain’t never been more’n ten mile from Possum Moan.
“No, sir, we ain’t got no plans but to get back into the fields.”
“Good boy, Little Charlie. Tell your ma we’ll be getting back with y’all.”
“Yes, sir. Good-bye, sir.”
Judge Byrd was knowed as the smartest man in the county. He quit being a judge so’s he could do all Mr. Tanner’s courthouse work for him.
My only hope was that he’d find something that would clear my name and keep me from swinging from a limb with a stretched neck and tied-up feet.
* * *
A week crawled past after Sheriff Jackson and his posse took me to the woods, and in that time, me and Ma and Stanky done jus’ as I tolt him we was gonna and spent all our time in the fields.
’Twas getting near harvesting time and we couldn’t waste one minute, else we might not get the crops in.
Ma had heard that the sheriff, Judge Byrd, and some other big bugs had gone back out to look at the tree to try and get ’nough proof to put me away. Folks tolt her the only reason I hadn’t got throwed in jail yet was the big bugs was too busy arguing if I should get strung up or jus’ locked ’way for the rest of my life.
It was with a lot of fear in my heart when, after hours in the fields, a gentle knock at the door caught me just afore I was ’bout asleep. ’Twas peculiar ’cause it was long after sunset and most folks was at home looking to rest for tomorrow’s work.