row! Looky outttt!" The
thought of getting tromped under the horses' feet caused my eyes to fly open
like a goggle-eyed bee, and my two ears stood straight out from the sides of
my head.
My first thought was to drop the gatepole and run off into the weeds to
get clear of the horses. The boys were still coming straight at me and
yelling, "Gonna git run oovver! Run overr! Looky outtt, Woodrow! Gonna git
run over an' killed!"
The boys and the horses were within ten foot of me, when I decided that
I'd just hold the gate shut. I happened to take one last look back at the
little wire loop on top, and it had slipped into the notch where I'd been
trying to put it. The gate was shut good as she ever was. I fell down off of
the brace post backwards and scrambled up to my feet again, and made the
worst face I could, and yelled back at the boys, "Ya! Ya! Ya! Thought you
wuz smart! Thought you'z smart!"
Both horses run keeeblamm into the gate. Warren, riding the Black
Joker, was traveling too fast to turn or stop, or even slow down. Lawrence
and Leonard had figured on the gate being open, and their own dust had
blinded them. Their horse stopped so quick that the boys slid right about a
couple of feet up onto the horse's neck; the horse waved his head a time or
two and threw both kids down amongst the wires where Warren was rolling
around.
All of this time I mostly just run about three times as fast as the
wild horses, till I come to Grandma's buggy. I mounted the back of it, set
there all humped up, and watched the crazy rodeo back at the gate. There was
the Black Joker stamping around still crying and squeeling a little, over
yonder in the west corner of the cotton field; and over there in the east
corner, in a few wild weeds, just on the edge of the cotton patch, there was
the horse without a name; and yonder in the middle of the whole thing there
was a cloud of Oklahoma's very best dust, that looked about like where you'd
heaved a hand grenade; you might not believe it to stand back off and look
at it, but somewhere in that dust I knowed there was three awful tough boys.
You couldn't see the boys. Just the dust fogging up. But you could see a few
slivers of barb wire wiggling in the sun.
"Warren! Lawrence! Leonard!'' Grandma was just about to yell
her yeller out. "You boys! Where! Wait! Are you hurt!"
She waded into the dust and was fanning both arms, reaching in around
the loose wires and fishing for mean boys. Then all I saw was her hat
bobbing up and down as she bent over and stood up, and bent over again,
hunting for kids. In a few minutes the dust crawled off of its own accord,
like a big animal of some kind, away from the gate, across the little rutty
road.
"Pore ol 'Gran'ma! Leonard's got killed, an' Warren's got killed, an'
Lawrence got killed." I was setting on the back end of the buggy, looking.
Tears the size of teacups was oozing down my cheeks and I could taste the
slick salt when the tears run down to the corner of my mouth.
"Warren! Warren!" Grandma called. "What are you doing over here in this
old ditch! Are you hurt bad?"
Warren got up and tried to brush the dirt off of his self; but his
school clothes was so full of holes and rips that every time he brushed, he
tore a bigger hole somewhere. He was sobbing and his whole body was jerking,
and he told Grandma, "It was that little ornery runt, Woodrow, done it! I'm
gonna cave his head in for 'im!"
"Now, you just hold yourself, Mister Rough Rider," Grandma told Warren.
"Woodrow was doing the best he could. He was closing that gate for me. You
bigger boys had no reason to come ridin' down the road yelling and trying to
scare a little kid to death. I don't care if it did skin you up a little,
you need it." Then she got to looking around for another boy, and she found
one laying flat of his belly out in a clump of sumac bushes, and it was
Leonard puffing and blowing like he'd been shell-shocked in four wars.
"Leonard! You dead?" Grandma said to him.
Leonard jumped up so quick that it would have made a mountain lion look
slow, and he started running toward the buggy as hard as he could tear,
squawling out, "I'm goin' ta beat that little skunk inta th' ground. Goin'
ta tear him up just like he tore me up!" And he kept coming for the buggy.
I was breathing pretty hard, and sometimes not at all. I knew what he'd
do. I let myself just sort of slide over the back of the buggy seat and down
onto the cushion, and held the reins as tight as I could and bit my tongue,
and looked out over the horses' backs toward the house.
Grandma found Lawrence in the same patch of weeds, skint up just about
like the other two, some hide and some duds and some hair missing. Leonard
was climbing up on the buggy seat beside me. He drew his hand back and made
a pass at my head, and I ducked to one side and let the lick fly past. He
hit the back of the buggy seat with his hand and that made him a whole lot
madder. The next lick he swung, he caught me square on the side of the head,
and my ears rung like a steam ñàlliope. I fell down on the seat with my
hands covering my head, and he rung two or three harder ones around over my
skull. I squeezed out of his grip, but I banged my head on the sharp corner
of a heavy wooden box in the bottom of the buggy, and when I touched my hand
to the knot that raised up just above my ear, and seen blood all over my
fingers, I let out a scream that rattled pecans in trees for a mile around.
The horses heard me, and jumped like they'd been blistered with a
lightning whip. They jerked the loose reins out of my hand. Tom made a lunge
in his harness, a leather strap broke; then Bess got scared and jumped
sideways, and snapped a hitching chain; and then both horses started
snorting, laying their ears back, and running for the barn just like a
cyclone. Leonard fell back on the cushion of the buggy seat. I was still
doubled up in a ball rolling around with the wooden box on the floor boards.
Neither of us could get a chance to jump. The horses kept loping faster and
after they got the buggy in motion, they broke out into their hardest run.
Leonard got madder than ever, and every time the horses' hoofs hit the
ground, or the wheels went around, he would give me a good kick in the back.
He was barefooted and he didn't hurt me much, but when he saw he wasn't, he
decided just to put both of his feet on my neck and try to choke me. The
buggy wheels bounced against rocks, hit roots, and jolted both of us out of
our wits.
Grandma was within three feet of the buggy when the horses broke and
run away, and I could hear her hollering, "Whoa! Whoa! Tom! Bess! Stop them
horses! God Almighty! There's a hundred sticks of dynamite in that buggy!"
I heard the horses grunt, and heard the water in their bellies jostle
around, heard the air snorting through their nostrils, and their hoofs
beating against the ground.
"That box you're leanin' up against is fulla dynamite!" Leonard
hollered.
"I don't care!" I yelled at him.
"If this buggy turns over, we're gonners!" he told me.
I told him, "I cain't stop 'em!"
"I'm goin't' jump! Leave you with it!" he bellered.
"Jump! See if I care!" I told him.
Leonard got up and stood with his feet in the seat, and the first time
he got his chance, he piled over the side, and hit rolling through a patch
of bullhead sticker weeds. All I saw was the seat of his britches as he flew
over the wheels. And that left me banging all around over the floor of the
buggy with nothing but a box of dynamite, and TNT caps, to keep me company.
The post of the gate swung past, and I let out my breath when we missed it
by about an inch; but I looked ahead of the horses and saw that the whole
barn lot was standing full of things that we couldn't miss. Straight ahead
was a steam tractor, and beside that was a couple of wagons with their
tongues propped up on their singletrees. Here was a hog-oiling machine. A
pile of corn cobs was in our path. I could picture Grandpa's barn, barn lot,
all of his plows, tools, and machinery, blowing up over the tree tops; but
the old horses knew more about this place than I did, and they made a big
horseshoe bend around the thrasher, cut in real quick to shave the tractor,
sidestepped a little to pass the pile of cobs, and then curved wide again.
But when they made a run for the barn door, I told myself good-bye. The
whole barn was stacked full of more wagons, machinery and plows, and there
was a concrete slab running across the ground just as you went in the door,
which I knew was enough of a hump to throw that box of dynamite plumb out of
the buggy. With my ear against the box, I could hear the big sticks thumping
about inside.
But, all at once, the horses come to the door. They wheeled sideways
again and stopped; horses aiming one direction, and the buggy another.
For a minute I just laid there hugging the box. Then I made a quick
high dive over the seat, and lit on the ground. Warren and Leonard come
riding up and jumped off of their horse.
"You little devil, you! You've caused us enough trouble!"
Warren made a run and grabbed me by the neck. "Come on, Leonard! I got
'im for ya! Here th' little bastard is! Beat th' livin' hell out of 'im!"
"Hold `im!" Leonard was saying. "Hold 'im till I can get my belt loose!
I'm gonna whop blisters on yore little hide that a dollar bill won't cover!
Yore whole dam family ain't nuthin' but bad luck! Hold `im, Warren!"
Leonard took a few seconds to unloose his belt buckle and get it pulled
out of the loops. I was kicking and crying, not loud. I didn't want Grandma
to think I was bellering so's she could hear me; but I was fighting. I was
using every cuss word that ever was or ever will be.
Your old blisters won't hurt me. Your old stropping belt won't hurt
long. Your old arm will give out. You don't know. You think you're scaring
me. You think you're takin' some of my fight out of me. You'll
whip me now, and I'll look like I'm cryin', but I won't really be cryin'.
I'll be havin' tears in my eyes because I'm mad at you. My family can't help
what happened to them. My mama can't help what happened.
You used to be friendly and nice to my mama when she was pretty and
healthy, and people was nice to you because you was my mama's brothers. But
then, when she had some bad things happen to her, and lost her pretty house,
and got sick, and needed you to treat her 'nice, you stand off and how'l and
bark like a crazy bunch of coyotes, and laugh and poke fun at us. It makes
me tough enough to stand here and let you whack me acrost the back and the
neck and ears, and blister my shoulders with that little old flimsy leather
strop, and I don't even feel it.
I was thinking these things, but I only said, "Cowards! Two on one!"
"Here's one across yer bare legs, you little runt, just to remember
that you caused us a lot of trouble!" And Leonard wrapped the belt around my
legs.
"Hurts, don't it? I want yuh to feel it plumb down to yer bones! I want
it to hurt! Does it?"
"Don't," I told him.
"What? You mean I ain't comin' down hard enough on this here belt?"
Leonard doubled the strap up in his hands and said, "I can make you say,
'hurt'! I'll give it to you doubled up an' double hard! I'll make you crawl
up to me on yer hands and knees and say, 'hurt'!" He was beating me one lick
after another one, all over my body, stinging, raising ridges, making
bruises and welts. I was fighting Warren, trying to get loose from his grip.
"Lemme loose! I want loose! I'll stand right here!" I told him.
"Say, 'hurt'!" Leonard brought down another hard one around my bare
legs.
"Turn me loose! I won't run!" I told them.
And then Warren loosened his hold on my arms, and said, "I'll just see
if you've got nerve enough to stand up like a man and take your beatin'!" He
let go of me, and I stood there looking at Leonard while he drew back to
give me some more of the strap.
"Say it hurts!" Leonard said. "I want to know I ain't been wastin' my
time! Say it hurts!"
Warren warned me from behind, "Better say what he wants you to say.
It'll be over quicker. Go ahead. Say it's hurtin'!"
"Won't," I said back at him.
"You little hard-headed, hard-luck sonofabitch! I'll make you say what
I want, or I'll beat you into the ground!" Leonard started striking first
from one side, and then the other, without even taking time to say a word or
to breathe in between. 'Talk like I tell yuh ta talk!"
"Ain't," I told him.
Then Grandma spoke up right behind Leonard's back and said, "No, you
don't, you young Kaiser Bill! You're too dang mean to be a living son of
mine! Give it here!" Almost before he knew it, she yanked the belt out of
his hand, and Leonard ran about twenty feet away and stood there shivering.
He knew that Grandma was hell on wheels when she got her dander riled up.
Warren was talking up for Leonard. "That dam little old stinkin'
Woodrow was the cause of the whole thing, Ma."
"Hush your trap!" Grandma turned to Warren and said, "You're just as
much in on this as your mean brother is! And you're running your old ma
crazy, both of you together!" She wadded the belt up into a little ball in
her two hands. Lawrence stood beside Grandma, not saying much, just looking
at first one of us and then the other.
"I don't know," she said, standing there with big tears rolling down
her cheeks, "I don't know what to do. I just don't know what to try next!''
The three boys were wiggling their feet and toes around, ducking their
heads, looking at the ground, but not saying a word.
"Any of you young studs got anything to say for yourselves?"
Leonard talked out and said, "What good's he doin' us by comin' around?
We don't wanta hafta play with `im. We ain't a-gonna let 'im foller us! He's
just ol' Nora's little ol' sickly runt. I don't like 'im, an' I hate his
guts!"
Grandma made about four quick steps and grabbed Leonard by the shirt
collar. She wound her hand around a time or two in his shirt till she had a
good hold on him, and then she started pushing him backwards, taking big
long steps, and he was falling back, listening to her say, "I've told you
this a dozen times before, young buck! Nora is just as much my little girl
as you are my little boy, get that? Nora's dad was just as good, and some
ways a whole lot better than your dad! He was my first husband! Nora was our
only child!" She jammed him back up against the side of the barn and every
time she'd tell him a word, she'd push him back a little harder, trying to
jar him into thinking. "No. Nora's not like you. No. I remember how Nora
was, even away back when she was just your age. She went to my little
schoolhouse where I taught, over on the Deep Fork River, and she read her
books and got her lessons, and she helped me mark and grade the papers. She
liked pretty music and she sung songs and played her own chords on the
piano; and she learned just about everything pretty that she got a half a
chance, just half a chance to! She made herself at home everywhere she went,
and people liked her; and I was always proud of her because ... she ..." and
Grandma turned her head away from the boy up against the barn; and her hand
fell open and the belt fell down onto the ground, and she said, "Leonard,
there's your belt. There. Laying on the ground, there. Pick it up. Put it
back in your britches. They're falling off. Come on. Come over here by the
wagon. I'm going to set myself down there on the tongue. Here, now, come on
over here, all of you boys, and your ma's going to hug all of you. And I
want you to put your arms around me, too, just like you always did. Just
like everything was all right."
Grandma rested herself by sitting down on the wagon tongue, and the
boys looked out of the corners of their eyes at each other, and walked over,
a little slow, but they walked, and put their arms around her; loose at
first, and she used her own hands to take hold of their arms and make them
tighter around her neck and shoulders. When she did, the boys hugged her
tighter, and she closed her eyes, and moved her head from one side to the
other, first brushing the bosom of one kid, and then the shirt, and the
shoulder of another.
She kept her eyes closed and said, "Woodrow, don't stand away over
there by yourself. You belong in my lap here. Come on and crawl up. That's
it. You belong with your little old curly head snuggled right close up, just
like that. God, this is good! Yes, all of you are my boys, doing the best
you've been taught. All of you will make mistakes, but, Lord, I can't make
any difference between you!"
There wasn't a sound out of any of the boys. I was holding my head up
under Grandma's mouth, listening to her talk real slow and long and soft;
and my eyes dripped tears down across the front of her bosom and faded her
town dress. The other three boys moved their heads, kept their eyes down.
"I'm sorry, Ma."
"Me, too, Ma."
"Don't cry, Maw."
"Gramma, I ain't mad at nobody."
Chapter IV
NEW KITTENS
Up at the house an hour later, Warren and Leonard had poured water and
washed their cuts clean, and drifted off into the house getting on some
clean clothes. Grandma talked a little to herself, getting some coffee
ground for supper. Lawrence trotted out into the yard in a few minutes and I
set on the stone steps of the porch and watched him. He pranked around under
the two big oak trees and then walked around the corner of the house.
I followed him. He was the littlest one of Grandma's boys. He was more
my size. I was about five and he was eight. I followed him back to a
rosebush where he pointed to old Mother Maltese and her new little bunch of
kittens. He was telling me all there is to know about cats.
First, we just rubbed the old mama cat on the head, and he told me she
was older than either one of us. "Cat's been here longer'n me even."
"How old is îl' mama cat?" I asked Lawrence.
"Ten."
"An' you're jest eight?" I said.
"Yeah."
"She's all ten fingers old. You ain't but jest this many fingers old,"
I went on.
"She's two older'n me," he said.
"Wonder how come you th' biggest?"
"Cause, crazy, I'm a boy, an' she's a cat!"
"Feel how warm an' smooth she is," I told him.
"Yeah," he said, "perty slick, all right; but th' little 'ums is th'
slickest. But ol' mama cat don't like for strangers ta come out here an'
stick yore han' down in her box an' feel on her little babies.''
"I been out here 'fore this," I told him, "so that makes me not no
stranger."
"Yeah," he told me back, "I know that; but then, you went back ta town
ag'in, see, an' course, that makes you part of a stranger."
"How much stranger am I? I ain't no plumb whole stranger; mama cat
knowed me when I wuz jest a little teeny weeny baby; jest this long;
an' my mama had ta keep me all nice an' warm jest like them
little baby cats, so's I wouldn't freeze, so's nuthin' wouldn't git me." I
was still stroking the old cat's head, and feeling of her with my fingers.
She was holding her eyes shut real tight, and purring almost loud
enough for Grandma to hear her in the house. Lawrence and me kept watching
and listening. The old mama cat purred louder and louder.
Then I asked Lawrence, "What makes 'er sound that a-way in 'er head?"
And he told me, "Purrin', that's what she's doin'."
"Makes 'er purr?" I asked him.
"She does it 'way back inside 'er head some way," Lawrence was telling
me.
"Sounds like a car motor," I said.
"She ain't got no car motor in 'er," he said.
"Might," I said.
"I don't much think she has, though."
"Might have a little 'un, kinda like a cat motor; I mean a regler
little motor fer cats," I said.
"What'd she be wantin' with a cat motor?"
"Lotsa things is got motors in 'em. Motors is engines. Engines makes
things go. Makes noise jest like ol' mama cat. Motor makes wheels go 'round,
so cats might have a real little motor ta make legs go, an' tail go, an'
feet move, an' nose go, an' ears wiggle, an' eyes go 'round, an' mouth fly
open, an' mebbe her stomach is' er gas tank." I was running my hand along
over the old mama cat's fur, feeling of each part as I talked, head, tail,
legs, mouth, eyes, and stomach; and the old cat had a big smile on her face.
"Wanta see if she's really got a motor inside of 'er? I'll go an' git
Ma's butcher knife, an' you hold 'er legs, an' I'll cut er belly open; an'
if she's got a motor in 'er, by jacks, I wanta see it! Want me to?" Lawrence
asked me.
"Cut 'er belly open?" I asked him. "Ya might'n find 'er motor when ya
got cut in there!"
"I c'n find it, if she's got one down in there! I helped Pa cut rabbits
an' squirrels an' fishes open, an' I never did see no motor in them!"
"No, but did you ever hear a rabbit er a squirrel either one, or a fish
make a noise like mama cat makes?"
"No. Never did."
"Well, mebbe that's why they ain't got no motor. Mebbe they gotta
differnt kinda motor. Don't make no kind of a noise."
"Might be. An' some of th' time mama cat don't make no noise either;
'cause some of th' time ya cain't even hear no motor in 'er belly. What
then?"
"Maybe she's just got th' key turned off!"
"Turned off?" Lawrence asked me.
"Might be. My papa's gotta car. His car's gotta key. Ya turn th' key
on, an' th' car goes like a cat. Ya turn th' key off, an' it quits."
'There yore hand goes ag'in! Didn' I tell you not ta touch them little
baby kittens? They ain't got no eyes open ta see with yet; you cain't put
yore hands on' em!" He cut his eyes around at me.
"Ohhhhhppppp! All right. I'm awful, awful sorry, mama cat; an' I'm
awful, awful sorry, little baby cats!" And I let my hand fall back down on
the old mama cat's back.
"That's all right ta pat 'er all you want, but she'll reach up an" take
'er claws, an' rip yore hand plumb wide open if you make one of her little
cats cry!" he told me.
"Know somethin', Lawrence, know somethin'?"
"What about?" he asked me.
"People says when I wuz a baby, jest like one of these here little baby
cats, only a little bit bigger, mebbe, my mama got awful bad sick when I wuz
borned under th' covers."
"I heard Ma an' them talk about her," he told me.
"What did they talk about?" I asked him.
"Oohhh, I dunno, she wuz purty bad off.''
"What made 'er bad off?"
"Yer dad."
"My papa did?"
"What people says."
"He's good ta me. Good ta my mama. What makes people say he made my
mama git sick?"
"Politics."
"What's them?''
"I dunno what politics is. Just a good way to make some money. But you
always have troubles. Have fights. Carry two guns ever' day. Yore dad likes
lots of money. So he got some people ta vote fer 'im, so then he got 'im two
guns an' went around c'lectin' money. Yore ma didn't like yore dad ta always
be pokin' guns, shootin', fightin', an' so, well, she just worried an'
worried, till she got sick at it--an' that was when you was borned a baby
not much bigger'n one of these here little cats, I reckon.'' Lawrence was
digging his fingernails into the soft white pine of the box, looking at the
nest of cats. "Funny thing 'bout cats. All of 'em's got one ma, an' all of
'ems differnt colors. Which is yore pet color? Mine's this 'un, an' this
'un, an' this 'un."
"I like all colors cats. Say, Lawrence, what does crazy mean?"
"Means you ain't got good sense.''
"Worried?"
"Crazy's more'n just worry."
"Worse'n worryin'?"
"Shore. Worry starts, an' you do that fer a long, long time, an' then
maybe you git sick 'er somethin', an' ya go all, well, you just git all
mixed up 'bout ever'thing."
"Is ever'body sick like my mama?"
"I don't guess."
"Reckin could all of our folks cure my mama?"
"Might. Wonder how?"
"If ever single livin' one of 'em would all git together an' git rid of
them ol' mean, bad politics, they'd all feel lots better, an' wouldn't fight
each other so much, an' that'd make my mama feel better."
Lawrence looked out through the leaves of the bushes. "Wonder where
Warren's headin', goin' off down toward th' barn? Be right still; he's
walkin' past us. He'll hear us talkin'."
I whispered real low and asked Lawrence, "Whatcha bein' so still for?
'Fraida Warren?"
And Lawrence told me, "Hushhh. Naw. 'Fraid fer th' cats."
"Why 'bîut th' cats?"
"Warren don't like cats."
"Why?" I was still whispering.
"Just don't. Be still. Ssshhh."
"Why?" I went on.
"Sez cats ain't no good. Warren kills all th' new little baby cats that
gits born'd on th' place. I had these hid out under th' barn. Don't let 'im
know we're here...."
Warren got within about twenty feet of us, and we could see his long
shadow falling over our rosebush; and then for a little time we couldn't see
him, and the rosebush blocked out of sight of him. Still, we could hear his
new sharp-toed leather shoes screaking every time he took a step. Lawrence
tapped me on the shoulder. I looked around and he was motioning for me to
grab up one side of the white pine box. I got a hold and he grabbed the
other side. We skidded the box up close to the rock foundation of the house,
and partly in behind the rosebush.
Lawrence held his breath and I held my hand over my mouth. Warren's
screaky shoes was the only sound I could hear. Lawrence laid his body down
over the box of cats. I laid down to hide the other half of the box, and the
screak, screak, screak got louder. I whiffed my nose and smelled the loud
whang of hair tonic on Warren's hair. His white silk shirt threw flashes of
white light through the limbs of the roses, and Lawrence moved his lips so
as to barely say, "Montgomery girl." I didn't catch him the first time, so
he puckered his lips to tell me again, and when he bent over my way, he
stuck a thorn into his shoulder, and talked out too loud:
"Montgomery--"
The screak of Warren's shoes stopped by the side of the bush. He looked
all around, and took a step back, then one forward. And he had us trapped.
I didn't have the guts to look up at him. I heard his shoes screak and
I knew that he was rocking from one foot to the other one, standing with his
hands on his hips, looking down on the ground at Lawrence and me. I shivered
and could feel Lawrence quiver under his shirt. Then I turned my head over
and looked out from under Lawrence's arm, both of us still hugging the box,
and heard Warren say, "What was that you boys was a-sayin'?"
"Tellin' Woody about somebody," Lawrence told Warren.
"Somebody? Who?" Warren didn't seem to be in any big rush.
"Somebody. Somebody you know," Lawrence said.
"Who do I know?" Warren asked him.
"Th' Mon'gom'ry folks,'' Lawrence said.
"You're a couple of dirty little low-down liars! All you know how to do
is to hide off in under some Goddamed bush, an' say silly things about other
decent people!" Warren told us.
"We wuzn't makin' no fun, swear ta God," Lawrence told him.
"What in the hell was you layin' under there talkin' about? Somethin'
your're tryin' to hide! Talk out!"
"I seen you was all nice an' warshed up clean, an' told Woody you was
goin' over ta Mon'gom'ry's place.''
"What else?"
"Nuthin else. 'At's all I said, swear ta God, all I told you, wasn't
it, Woody?"
" 'S all I heard ya say," I told him.
"Now ain't you a pair of little old yappin' pups? You know dam good an'
well you was teasin' me from behind 'bout Lola Montgomery! How come you two
hidin' here in th' first place? Just to see me walk past you with all of my
clean clothes on? See them new low-cut shoes? See how sharp th' toes are?
Feel with your finger, both of you, feel! That's it! See how sharp? I'd
ought to just take that sharp toe and kick both of your little rears."
"Quit! Quit that pushin' me!" Lawrence was yelling as loud as he could,
hoping Grandma would hear. Warren pushed him on the shoulder with the bottom
of his shoe, and tried to roll Lawrence over across the ground. Lawrence
swung onto his box of cats so tight that Warren had to kick as hard as he
could, and push Lawrence off the box.
The only thing I could think of to do was jump on top of the box and
cover it up. Lawrence was yelling as loud as he could yell. Warren was
laughing. I wasn't saying anything.
"Whut's that box you're a holdin' onto there so tight?" Warren asked
me.
"Jest a plain ol' box!" Lawrence was crying and talking.
"Jest a plain wooden box," I told Warren.
"What's on th' inside of it, runts?"
"Nuthin's in it!"
"Jist a ol' empty one!"
And Warren put his shoe sole on my back and pushed me over beside
Lawrence. "I'll just take me a look! You two seems mighty interested in
what's inside of that box!"
"You îl' mean outfit, you! God, I hate you! You go on over an' see yore
ol' 'Gomery girl, an' leave us alone! We ain't a-hurtin' you!" Lawrence was
jumping up. He started to draw back and fight Warren, but Warren just took
his open hand and pushed Lawrence about fifteen feet backwards, and he fell
flat, screaming.
Warren put his foot on my shoulder and give me another shove. I went
about three feet. I tried to hold onto the box, but the whole works turned
over. The old mama cat jumped out and made a circle around us, meowing first
at Warren, and then at me and the little baby kittens cried in the split
cotton seed.
"Cat lovers!" Warren told us.
"You g'wan, an' let us be! Don't you tech them cats! Ma! Ma! Warr'n's
gonna hurt our cats!" Lawrence squawled out.
Warren kicked the loose cotton seed apart. "Just like
tearin' up a bird's nest!" he said. He put the sharp toe of his
shoe under the belly of the first little cat, and threw it up against the
rock foundation. "Meoww! Meoww! You little chicken killers! Egg stealers!"
He picked the second kitten up in the grip of his hand, and squeezed till
his muscles bulged up. He swung the kitten around and around, something like
a Ferris wheel, as fast as he could turn his arm, and the blood and entrails
of the kitten splashed across the ground, and the side of the house. Then he
held the little body out toward Lawrence and me. We looked at it, and it was
just like an empty hide. He threw it away out over the fence.
Warren took the second kitten, squeezed it, swung it over his head and
over the top wire of the fence. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and
seventh.
The poor old mama cat was running backwards, crossways, and all around
over the yard with her back humped up, begging against Warren's legs, and
trying to jump up and climb up his body to help her babies. He boxed her
away and she came back. He kicked her thirty feet. She moaned along the
rocks, smelling of her babies' blood and insides. She scratched dirt and dug
grass roots; then she made a screaming noise that chilled my blood and
jumped six feet, clawing at Warren's arm. He kicked her in the air and her
sides were broke and caved in. He booted her up against the side of the
house, and she laid there wagging her tail and meowing; and Warren grabbed
the box and splintered it against the rocks and the mama cat's head. He
grabbed up two rocks and hit her in the stomach both shots. He looked at me
and Lawrence, spit on us, threw the loose cotton seed into our faces, and
said, "Cat-lovin' bastards!" And he started walking on away toward the barn.
"You ain't no flesh an' blood of mine!" Lawrence cried after him.
"Hell with you, baby britches! Hell with you. I don't even want to be
yore dam brother!" Warren said over his shoulder.
"You ain't my uncle, neither," I told him, "not even my mama's half
brother! You ain't even nobody's halfway brother! I'm glad my mama ain't no
kin ta you! I'm glad I ain't!" I told him.
"Awwww. Whattaya know, whattaya know, you half-starved little runt?"
Warren was turned around, standing in the late sun with his shirt white and
pretty in the wind. "You done run yore mama crazy just bein' born! You
little old hard-luck bringer! You dam little old insane-asylum baby!" And
Warren walked away on down to the barn.
Then Lawrence rolled up onto his feet off of the grass and tore around
the side of the house hollering and telling Grandma what all Warren had done
to the cats.
I scrambled up over the fence and dropped down into the short-weed
patch. The old mama cat was twisting and moaning and squeezing through at
the bottom of the wire, and making her way out where Warren had slung her
little babies.
I saw the old mama walk around and around her first kitten in the
weeds, and sniffle, and smell, and lick the little hairs; then she took the
dead baby in her teeth, carried it through the weeds, the rag weeds,
gypsums, and cuckle burrs that are a part of all of Oklahoma.
She laid the baby down when she come to the edge of a little trickling
creek, and held up her own broken feet when she walked around the kitten
again, circling, looking down at it, and back up at me.
I got down on my hands and knees and tried to reach out and pet her.
She was so broke up and hurting that she couldn't stand still, and she
pounded the damp ground there with her tail as she walked a whole circle all
around me. I took my hand and dug a little hole in the sandy creek bank and
laid the dead baby in, and covered it up with a mound like a grave.
When I seen the old Mama Maltese holding her eyes shut with the lids
quivering and smell away into the air, I knew she was on the scent of her
second one.
When she brought it in, I dug the second little grave.
I was listening to her moan and choke in the weeds, dragging her belly
along the ground, with her two back legs limber behind her, pulling her body
with her front feet, and throwing her head first to one side and then to the
other.
And I was thinking: Is that what crazy is?
Chapter V
MISTER CYCLOME
"Here I am, Papa!" I ripped out the east door and went running down to
where Papa was. "Here I am! I wanta help shoot!"
"Get back away from that hole! Dynamite!" He hadn't noticed me as I
trotted out.
"Where 'bouts?" I was standing not more than three feet away from the
hole he'd been drilling through a rock' "Where?"
"Run! This way!" He grabbed me in his arms, covered me over with his
jacket and fell down flat against the ground, "Lay still! Down!"
The whole hill jarred. Rocks howled out over our heads.
"I wanna see!" I was trying to fight my way out from under him. "Lemme
out!"
"Keep down!" He hugged his jacket around me that much tighter. "Those
rocks just went up. They'll be down in a jiffy!"
I felt him duck his head down against mine. The rocks thumped all
around us and several peppered the jacket. The cloth was stretched tight. It
sounded like a war drum. "Wowie!" I said to Papa.
"You'll think, Wowie!" Papa laughed when he got up. He brushed his
clothes off good. "One of those rocks hit you on the head, and you wouldn't
think anything for a long time!"
"Le's go blow another'n up!" I was pacing around like a cat wanting
milk.
"All right! Come on! You can take the little hoe and dig a nice
ten-foot hole!"
"Goshamighty! How deep?"
"Teen feet."
"Lickety split! Lickety split!" I was chopping out a hole with the
little hoe. "Is this 'teen feet deep?"
"Keep on with your work!" Papa acted like a chain-gang boss. "Whew! I
don't believe I ever did see it get so hot this late in the stimmer. But I
guess we'll have to keep digging without air! We've just got to get this old
London Place fixed up. Then we can sell it to somebody and get some money
and buy us another better place. You like that?"
"I don't like nuthin' bad. I wanta move. Mama wants ta move, too. So
does Roy an' Clara, an' ever'body else."
"Yes, little boy, I know, I know."' Papa knocked the blue
rock smoke out of the hole every time his crowbar come down. "I like
everything that's good, don't you?"
"Mama had a piano an' lotsa good things when she was a little kid,
didn't she?" I kept leaning on the handle of my hoe. "An" now she ain't got
no nice things."
"Yes. She always loved the good things." Papa pulled a red bandana out
of his hip pocket and wiped the sweat from his face. "You know, Woody boy,
I'm afraid."
"'Fraida what?"
"This infernal heat. It's got me guessing." Papa looked all around in
every direction, sniffed in the air. "Don't know exactly. But it feels like
to me there's not a single breath of air stirring."
"Purty still, all right. I'm sweatin'!"
"Not a leaf. Not a blade of grass. Not a feather. Not a spider-web
stirring." He turned his face away to the north. A quick, fast breath of
cool air drifted across the hill.
"Good îl' cool wind!" I was puffing my lungs full of the new air
stirring. "Good ol', good îl', cool, cool wind!"
"Yes, I feel the cool wind." He stayed down on his hands, looking
everywhere, listening to every little sound. "And I don't like it!" He
yelled at me. "And you hadn't ought to say that you like it, either!"
"Papa, what'sa matter, huh?" I laid on my belly as close up beside Papa
as I could get, and looked everywhere that he did. "Papers an' leafs an'
feathers blowin'. You ain't really scared, are ya, Papa?"
Papa's voice sounded shaky and worried. "What do you know about
cyclones? You've never even seen one yet! Quit popping off at your mouth!
Everything that I've been working and fighting for in my whole life is tied
up right here in this old London Place!"
I never thought that I would see my dad so afraid of anything.
" 'Taint no good!"
"Shut your little mouth before I shut it for you!"
" 'Tain't no good!"
"Don't you dare talk back to your papa!"
" 'Tain't no good!"
"Woody, I'll split you hide!" Then he let his head drop down till his
chin touched the bib of his overhalls and his tears wet the watch pocket.
"What makes you say it's not any good, Woody?"
"Mama said it." I rolled a foot or two away from him. An' Mama cries
alla th' time, too!"
The wind rustled against the limbs of the locust trees across the road
running up the hill. The walnut trees frisked their heads in the air and
snorted at the wind getting harder. I heard a low whining sound everywhere
in the air as the spider webs, feathers, old flying papers, and dark clouds
swept along the ground, picking up the dust, and blocking out the sky.
Everything fought and pushed against the wind, and the wind fought
everything in its way.
"Woody, little boy, come over here."
"I'm a-gonna run." I stood up and looked toward the house.
"No, don't run." I had to stand extra still and quiet to hear Papa talk
in the wind. "Don't run. Don't ever run. Come on over here and let me hold
you on my lap."
I felt a feeling of some kind come over me like the chilly winds coming
over the hot hill. I turned nervous and scared and almost sick inside. I
fell down into Papa's lap, hugging him around the neck so tight his whiskers
rubbed my face nearly raw. I could feel his heart beating fast and I knew he
was afraid.
"Le's run!"
"You know, I'm not ever going to run any more, Woody, Not from people.
Not from my own self. Not from a cyclone."
"Not even from a lightnin' rod?"
"You mean a bolt of lightning? No. Not even from a streak of
lightning!"
"Thunner? `Tater wagon?"
"Not from thunder. Not from my own f