Stories of Erskine Caldwell Read online

  “Whoo-way-oh!” he called to his hounds. “Whoo-way-oh!”

  The echo was a masterful sound to hear.

  (First published in the Atlantic Monthly)

  Carnival

  IT WAS MORE THAN she could bear any longer. Bess stumbled out of the pitch-dog stand and felt her way over ropes, pegs, and packing crates to their house-tent. She had told Hutch she wanted to comb her hair, but she knew that he knew as well as she did what the trouble was.

  Bess did not cry. It had been a year since she had done anything like that. She had been with Hutch, following the carnival with a pitch-dog stand, for over two years, and it was at least a year since she had cried. She lay down on the cot, breathing heavily.

  She could hear Hutch’s voice occasionally above the din and the raucous roar of the midway. No matter how high rose the pitch of screaming voices in the Fun House, or of the metallic grind-music in the Cuban Cabaret, or of the amplified hoarseness of the try-your-luck barkers, Bess could always hear Hutch’s familiar singsong spiel.

  “Knock the little doggies off, and take home a brand-new silver dollar, folks!” She had said it so many times herself that Hutch’s voice sounded as if the words were coming from her.

  The dust raised by the carnival crowd’s shuffling feet settled over her face and arms as she lay stiffly extended on the cot. The heat, the noise, the incessant glare of light settled on her like a heavy blanket.

  “Knock the little doggies off, and take home a brand-new silver dollar, folks, a brand-new silver dollar.”

  Hutch’s voice sounded mechanical again. Bess lay back on the cot. Hutch was talking to that girl who had been leaning against the railing in front of the stand for the past half hour. There was always a different ring in Hutch’s voice when he was trying to do two things like that at once. She knew what he was up to as well as he knew himself. He was trying to make a date with the girl. When he succeeded, he would disappear, the girl would disappear, and Bess would not see Hutch again until the next morning. It had been that way so many times during the past two years that she had lost count.

  Bess turned over, trying to shut out the glare of the midway lights that filtered through the thin canvas. She did not even know the name of the town they were in. It might have been something like Emporia, Fostoria, Peoria. It was a cotton town somewhere west of Birmingham, and that was about all she knew. Towns had been all the same lately, since Hutch had got into the habit of going off with a strange girl several times a week.

  Bess got up, combed her hair, and brushed the dust from her dress. While she was brushing her clothes, she heard Hutch call her. She left the tent and stumbled towards the stand.

  “Knock the little doggies off, and take home a brand-new silver dollar, folks!” Hutch said while she climbed under the railing. He turned around and winked at her. “Knock the little doggies off, folks! Only a dime!”

  Before she saw Hutch, Bess saw the girl. It was the same girl, the one who had been leaning over the railing and talking to Hutch when she left.

  “How about it, Bess?” Hutch began.

  Bess turned and looked the girl up and down. She was a plain-looking creature with straight blond hair that needed shampooing. She did not seem much over twenty, but her hands were work-stained and a little wrinkled.

  “Her?” Bess asked Hutch, futilely.

  “What’s the difference, this time?” he said a little impatiently.

  “You seem to be a little less particular each time, Hutch.”

  “Now, let’s not fall out, Bess,” Hutch said, rubbing her nervously on her back and shoulders.

  Hutch ducked under the railing and disappeared behind the stand. The milling mob of people was churning up a cloud of dust that looked like dense yellow smoke in the glare of lights. Bess could feel particles of dust and flakes of grit settle on her arms and face. She brushed it all away.

  The girl looked up at her nervously two or three times. She was gradually receding into the crowd. All at once she turned and pushed her way around the side of the stand out of sight.

  A party of men and women pushed up to the railing, filling the vacant space the girl had left. The people stared at Bess as if she were one of the freaks in the sideshow down the midway.

  “What’s the game?” one of the men asked her in a loud voice.

  Bess stared down into the faces. Each one of them looked like Hutch and his girls.

  Almost automatically Bess picked up a handful of battered balls and held them out in front of her.

  “Knock the little doggies off, folks, and take home a brand-new silver dollar!”

  “That’s fair enough,” one of the men said, handing her a dime.

  The man threw the three balls, but knocked off only two of the three stuffed dogs. He turned away to leave.

  “Wait a minute, Mister!” Bess cried after him. “I’ll make you a better proposition!”

  The man came back.

  “I haven’t any more dimes to throw away on a game like that,” he said, shaking his head. “You people have got those dogs rigged up so they all won’t fall off, even if I did hit them.”

  Bess leaned over the railing.

  “Be a sport, Mister. Here’s your chance of a lifetime. Look! I’m going to give you ten balls. If you knock off all three dogs, you can write your own ticket. Now, how’s that for an offer?”

  The man grabbed the balls, heaving them at the dogs. They all fell on the ground.

  “You win the setup!” Bess cried, ducking under the railing. “It’s all yours! Go on in there and take it!”

  She pushed into the crowd, elbowing her way out of sight. Soon she was blinded by the dust that rose up from the ground, and before she had gone halfway down the midway, she was lost. Pushing her way out of the crowd, she crossed a vacant lot and began walking along a street that looked as if it would lead her out of town. She did not care in what direction she was going, as long as it led away from Emporia, Fostoria, Peoria, or whatever it was.

  (First published in Mid-Week Pictorial)

  The Windfall

  WHEN WALDO MURDOCK, whose trade, when he felt like working at it, was rendering creatures, came into the unexpected inheritance, there had been no commotion in Brighton to equal it since the time when, eleven years before, one of the Perkins brothers, with no more forewarning than a stroke of summer lightning, ran away in broad daylight with the resident minister’s wife.

  As for the townspeople, none of them, not even Aunt Susie Shook, who told fortunes by reading tea leaves, or coffee grounds if necessary, had ever had the remotest idea that anything in the nature of sudden wealth would fall into Waldo Murdock’s scrawny lap, while at the same time, of course, people were quick to say that if he had not been sitting down, as usual, instead of being up and doing, there would have been no lap of his for it to fall into; and certainly Waldo himself, even though he daydreamed about almost everything else under the sun, had never entertained such a far-fetched thought in his mind.

  Waldo did not even know he had a brother in Australia and, even if he had known it, he would never have imagined that he would be remembered in a will. From Bangor to Burlington, all the Murdocks, especially the home-owning branch of the family, were known throughout the entire region north of Boston for their trait, which relatives by marriage and other outsiders called cussedness, of not acknowledging kinship with one another. And as it was, it was all Waldo could do to force himself, after having cast aside pride of long standing, publicly to admit blood relationship with another Murdock, even if he had lived in Australia, long enough to go to the bank in Waterville and cash the check the lawyer from Portland had handed him.

  “Pay no mind to what the people say,” he told the clerk in the bank. “There may be others in the State of Maine bearing the name of Murdock, but there’s not a single drop of mingling blood that I would own to. I’d sooner claim kinship with my old black cow than I would with a so-called Murdock.”

  Dessie, Waldo’s wife, was, at t
he beginning, the most levelheaded of all. She maintained her mental balance, if only at the start, much better than Waldo and some of the townspeople. Dessie, although afterward she regretted not having gone along, even remained at home and tended the house chores while Waldo was away in Waterville cashing the check. There was only one thing she did out of the ordinary that forenoon, and that was to make Justine, the hired girl, air the parlor and shake out the scatter rugs, even if it was not Saturday.

  During all that time the neighbors were ringing her up on the phone and asking what she was going to do with all that money, but that, too, in the beginning, failed to veer the even measure of her thoughts.

  “When the check is cashed, if it’s not worthless, and it’ll be a wonder if it’s not, there’ll be ample time at hand for me to go out of my way to think about it,” she told them. “Right now, and likely forever after, it’s nothing but a scrawl and a promise on a slip of paper.”

  Dessie went back to work with her lips a little tighter each time she finished talking to one of the neighbors on the phone. She was not exactly worried, she told Justine, but she was feeling impatient. Waldo failed to come home at the noon hour for dinner, and it was not long after that before she, like everybody else in Brighton who was working himself into a frenzy over Waldo’s sudden windfall, began thinking of the things that could be done with the money.

  Late that afternoon Waldo drove up to the dooryard and left the automobile standing there instead of putting it away in the shed where it belonged.

  Justine came running to tell her.

  Dessie was so on edge by that time that she jumped several inches off the chair seat when Justine, who was as excited as she by then, ran into the room where she was.

  “Mr. Murdock’s back!” Justine cried, twisting her fingers.

  “He’d better be!” Dessie said. “If he hadn’t got home when he did, he could have just kept on traveling, for all the concern I’d ever have.”

  “I guess Mr. Murdock has the real money,” Justine said, looking over her shoulder. “He looked like he was feeling good about it when he got out of the auto.”

  Dessie leaped to her feet.

  “Go on about your tasks, whatever they be, Justine,” she said crossly. “It’s none of your money, if there is any, anyway.”

  Justine went to the kitchen and watched Waldo come along the path to the side door.

  Waldo came in, throwing his hat on the table. He looked at Dessie for a moment, cocking his head a little to one side. His coat pocket sagged heavily.

  Neither Dessie nor Waldo spoke for a while.

  Presently Dessie walked up to him and held out her hand.

  “Guess I’ll take charge for the time being,” she said stiffly. “Hand it over.”

  Waldo reached into his coat pocket, drawing out a mostly empty bottle and handing it to her. She stepped back, looking at it severely. Then, without a word, she grabbed the bottle by the neck and slung it with all her might across the room. It struck the wall, shattering into dozens of pieces.

  “I might have known it, and I would have, if I had only had the sense God has given most people!” she said, raising her voice. “I’ve got only myself to blame!”

  Waldo reached for a chair.

  “Now there’s no cause for a human to take on so, Dessie,” he said. “Everything turned out, from here to there and back again, like it was made to order.”

  He reached into his pants pocket and drew out a bulging roll of greenbacks. The bills were tied tightly around the center with a piece of heavy twine. Dessie forgot her anger the instant she saw the money. The scowling lines on her face disappeared completely while she watched Waldo bounce the roll up and down in his hand.

  “All I’ve got to say,” she began, “is that I never thought I’d live to breathe the air of the day when a deceasing Murdock would have the decency to do the honorable thing with his money, even if he couldn’t find means of taking it along with him when he went, which would be a wonder if he didn’t try to do, and he probably did, anyway.”

  Waldo leaned back and let her talk to her heart’s content. He felt so good himself that he wanted her to have a good time, too. He let her speak what came to mind, without uttering a single grumble.

  “Have you any more blood relations that we’ve neglected to remind ourselves of, Waldo?” she asked, leaning toward him. “It seems to me that I recall your second cousin in Skowhegan saying once some years ago that a Murdock went to California at the end of the Spanish-American War and prospected for gold. It might be that he struck it rich out there, which a lot of people did, so I’ve read, if reading can be believed. If we’d been more particular about your blood relations in the past, we wouldn’t have to sit here now and wrack our brains trying to call them to mind at a time like this.”

  “Guess I have no blood relations of the name of Murdock,” Waldo said firmly.

  Dessie drew a deep breath and looked longingly at the large roll of greenbacks bouncing up and down in her husband’s hand.

  Suddenly she leaned forward and grasped the roll desperately.

  Waldo snatched it from her.

  “I think we ought to start making plans,” she said.

  “This is Murdock money, woman,” he said quickly. “A Murdock made it, and a Murdock shall spend it.”

  Dessie sat up decisively.

  “Well, anyway, we’ll be sensible,” she said calmly. “We won’t throw it away on trifles like a lot of people would who I could mention, if I had a mind to.”

  “I’ve got it all settled, Dessie,” Waldo told her, smiling as a kindly feeling came over him. “Guess we can afford to have a good time now at our age. Maybe we won’t be lingering here much longer, which would be a shame if we hadn’t taken full advantage of it by the time we went. Wouldn’t be no sense in hoarding it only to have to pass it along to somebody else after we are gone.”

  Dessie nodded approvingly, her spirits rising again.

  “I’ve always wanted a fur neckpiece, Waldo,” she said, her face bright with hope.

  Dessie did not sleep a single wink that night. For an hour after they had gone to bed, she lay silently tense, listening. Waldo did not stir. He lay on his back listening to Dessie’s labored breathing.

  Just before midnight Dessie got up as quietly as she possibly could and tiptoed to the foot of the bed where Waldo had laid his pants over the back of a chair. It was dark in the room with the shades drawn, and she took care in feeling her way to the chair. She was trembling nervously when she touched it, and the jerking of her breath had started a pain in her chest. Without losing any more time she slid her hand into the pants pocket.

  “Get your hand out of my pants, Dessie,” Waldo said, rising up in bed. “Leave that money be.”

  Dessie dropped the pants without having touched the money, and went back to bed without a word. Neither of them spoke as she lay down again and tried to make herself as comfortable as possible for the remainder of the night. After that both of them lay staring into the blackness of the room.

  Just as dawn was beginning to show the first signs of breaking, Dessie slid carefully from the bed and crawled on her hands and knees toward the chair. As she was rising up to reach the pants, Waldo sat up erectly.

  “Don’t want to have to mention it again about you putting your hand in my pants pocket,” he said. “Leave that money be, Dessie.”

  Dessie dropped the pants and went to the window. She stood there watching a red dawn break in the east. After a while she began dressing, and as she was leaving the chamber she heard Justine starting a fire in the kitchen stove.

  While she and Justine were preparing breakfast, she began to realize how uneasy she really was about the money. She had spent a sleepless night worrying over the wealth, and she was afraid she would not get a chance to spend a single penny of it herself.

  “Mrs. Murdock,” Justine said, coming and standing beside her, “Carl and I could get mated right away if we had the money for a chamber suite
.”

  “Let Carl Friend make his own money,” Dessie said sharply, turning on the girl. “Me and my husband have worked hard all our lives for what we possess. It won’t hurt Carl Friend to do the same for you, if he wants a family.”

  “I couldn’t sleep much last night for staying awake wondering if you and Mr. Murdock wouldn’t want to help me out,” Justine said persistently. “Especially because I’ve worked here for you six years without asking favors, and I didn’t think you’d miss a little of all that big inheritance from Australia.”

  “Mind your own affairs, Justine!” she said sharply. “Besides, Carl Friend can get the money from his own family if he wants to furnish a house for you. Those Friends have made plenty of profit in roof tinning in the past.”

  “They won’t help any, Mrs. Murdock,” Justine said sadly. “And Carl and I don’t want to have to wait and wait and wait.”

  “You don’t have to hurry the marriage for any reason, do you?” Dessie asked suspiciously.

  Justine looked at her for several moments, her thoughts racing through her mind.

  “Not exactly,” she admitted at last.

  “Well, then,” Dessie said, turning away, “in that case, you can afford to wait.”

  In turning abruptly she almost walked headlong into Waldo. He had come into the kitchen and was going toward the pantry. After Dessie had stepped out of the way, she watched him go into the pantry and pick up several cans off the shelf. He found an empty coffee can and left, going through the kitchen and out the door without a word being spoken. Dessie watched him leave, wondering what he was about to do. She went to the window and watched as he walked to the toolshed and came out a moment later carrying a spade. With the coffee can in one hand and the spade over his shoulder, he disappeared out of sight behind the barn.