Stories of Erskine Caldwell Read online

  The woman held her lower lip clamped tightly between her teeth. It hurt her to do that, but it was the only way she could urge herself forward step after step. There was no other way to drag her feet one behind the other, mile after mile. She whimpered occasionally, but she did not cry out.

  “It’s time to stop and rest again,” Ring said.

  She did not answer him.

  They kept on.

  At the top of the hill, they came face to face with the sun. It was a quarter of the way up, cut like a knife by the treeless horizon. Down below them was a valley lying under a cover of mist that was rising slowly from the earth. They could see several houses and farms, but most of them were so far away they were almost indistinguishable in the mist. There was smoke rising from the chimney of the first house.

  Ruth looked at the man beside her. The red rays of the sun had begun to color his pale face like blood. But still his eyes were tired and lifeless. He looked as if he were balancing himself on his two feet with great effort, and as if the next moment he might lose his balance and fall to the ground.

  “We’ll be able to get a little something to eat at that first house,” she said, waiting minute after minute for him to reply.

  “We’ll get something there,” she said, answering for him. “We will.”

  The sun came up above the horizon, fast and red. Streaks of gray clouds, like layers of woodsmoke, swam across the face of it. Almost as quickly as it had risen, the sun shrank into a small fiery button that seared the eyes until it was impossible to look at it any longer. “Let’s try, anyway,” Ruth said.

  Ring looked at her in the clear daylight, seeing her for the first time since the sun had set the night before. Her face was paler, her cheeks more sunken.

  Without words, he started forward down the hill. He did not turn his head to see if she was following him, but went down the road drawing one foot from behind and hurling it in front of him with all his might. There was no other way he could move himself over the ground.

  He had stopped at the front of the house, looking at the smoke that floated overhead, when she caught up with him at last. “I’ll go in and try,” she said. “You sit down and rest, Ring.” He opened his mouth to say something, but his throat became choked and no words came. He looked at the house, with its worn doorstep and curtain-filled windows and its smoke-filled chimney, and he did not feel like a stranger in a strange country as long as he kept his eyes upon those things.

  Ruth went through the gate, and around the side, of the house, and stopped at the kitchen door. She looked behind her and saw Ring coming across the yard from the road.

  Someone was watching them from behind a curtain at the window. “Knock,” Ring said.

  She placed the knuckles of her right hand against the side of the house and rapped on the clapboards until her hand began to hurt.

  She turned around and glanced quickly at Ring, and he nodded his head.

  Presently the kitchen door opened a few inches and a woman’s head could be seen through the crack. She was middle-aged and brown-faced and had a long, thick scar on her forehead that looked as if it might have been made by a bursting fruit jar. “Go away,” she told them.

  “We won’t bother you,” Ruth said as quickly as she could. “All we wanted was to ask you if you could give us a little something to eat. Just a potato, if you have any, or bread, or something.”

  “I don’t know what you are doing here,” the woman said. “I don’t like to have strange people around my house.”

  She almost closed the door, but in a moment the crack widened, and her face could be seen once more.

  “I’ll feed the girl,” she said finally, “but I can’t let the man have anything. I don’t have enough for both of you, anyway.”

  Ruth turned quickly around, her heels digging into the sandy earth. She looked at Ring. He nodded his head eagerly.

  He could see the word forming on her lips even though he could not hear it. She shook her head.

  Ring went several steps toward her.

  “We’ll try somewhere else,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “You go in and eat what she’ll give you. I’ll try at the next house we come to.”

  She still did not wish to go into the house without him. The woman opened the door a foot or more, and waited for her to come up the steps.

  Ring sat down on a bench under a tree.

  “I’m going to sit here and wait until you go in and get something to eat for yourself,” he said.

  Ruth went up the steps slowly to the porch and entered the door. When she was inside, the woman pointed out a chair by a table, and Ruth sat down.

  There were potatoes, warmed over from the night before, and cold biscuits. These were put on the table in front of her, and then the woman poured a cup of hot coffee and set it beside the plate.

  Ruth began to eat as quickly as she could, sipping the hot black coffee and chewing the potatoes and bread while the brown-faced woman stood behind her at the door, where she could watch Ring and her by turns.

  Twice Ruth managed to slip pieces of bread into her blouse, and finally she got half a potato into the pocket of her skirt. The woman eyed her suspiciously when she was not watching Ring in the yard outside. “Going far?” the woman asked. “Yes,” Ruth answered. “Come far?” the woman asked. “Yes,” Ruth said. “Who is that man with you1?”

  “He’s my husband,” Ruth told her.

  The woman looked out into the yard again, then back at Ruth. She did not say anything more for a while.

  Ruth tried to put another piece of potato into her skirt pocket, but by then the woman was watching her more closely than ever.

  “I don’t believe he is your husband,” the woman said.

  “Well,” Ruth answered, “he is.”

  “I wouldn’t call him much of a husband to let you walk through the country begging food like you did just a little while ago.”

  “He’s been sick,” Ruth said quickly, turning in the chair to face the woman. “He was sick in bed for five weeks before we started out.”

  “Why didn’t you stay where you were, instead of making tramps out of yourselves? Can’t he hold a job, or don’t he want to work?”

  Ruth got up, dropping the bread in her hand.

  “Thank you for the breakfast,” she said. “I am going now.”

  “If you take my advice,” the woman said, “you’ll leave that man the first chance you get. If he won’t work at a job, you’ll be a fool —”

  “He had a job, but he got sick with a kind of fever.”

  “I don’t believe you. I’d put you down for lying about him.”

  Ruth went to the door, opened it herself, and went outside. She turned around on the porch and looked at the woman who had given her something to eat.

  “If he was sick in bed, like you said,” the woman asked, following her past the door, “why did he get up and start tramping like this with nothing for you and him to eat?”

  Ruth saw Ring sitting on the bench under the tree, and she was not going to answer the woman, but she could not keep from saying something.

  “The reason we started out walking like this was because my sister wrote and told me that our baby had died. When my husband first got sick, I sent the baby to my sister’s. Now we’re going to see the grave where she’s buried.”

  She ran down the steps and walked across the yard as rapidly as she could. When she reached the corner of the house, Ring got up and followed her to the road. Neither of them said anything, but she could not keep from looking back at the house, where the woman was watching them through the crack in the door.

  After they had gone a hundred feet or more, Ruth unfastened her blouse and pulled out the pieces of bread she had carried there. Ring took them from her without a word. When he had eaten all there was, she gave him the potato. He ate it hungrily, talking to her with his eyes while he chewed and swallowed.

  They had walked for nearly half an hour before either
of them spoke again.

  “She was a mean old woman,” Ruth said. “If it hadn’t been for the food, I’d have got up and left before I ate what she gave me.”

  Ring did not say anything for a long time. They had reached the bottom of the valley and were beginning to go up the grade on the other side before he spoke again. “Maybe if she had known where we were going, she might not have been so mean to you,” Ring said.

  Ruth choked back a sob.

  “How much farther is it, Ring?”

  “About thirty or forty miles.”

  “Will we get there tomorrow?”

  He shook his head.

  “The day after?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe if we get a ride, we might get there tonight?” she asked, unable to hold back any longer the sobs that choked her throat and breast.

  “Yes,” he said. “If we could get a ride, we would get there a lot sooner.”

  He turned his head and glanced down the road behind them, but there was nothing in sight. Then he looked down at the ground he was walking on, counting the steps he took with his right foot, and then his left.

  (First published in the New Yorker)

  Candy-Man Beechum

  IT WAS TEN MILES out of the Ogeechee swamps, from the sawmill to the top of the ridge, but it was just one big step to Candy-Man. The way he stepped over those Middle Georgia gullies was a sight to see.

  “Where you goin’, Candy-Man?”

  “Make way for these flapping feet, boy, because I’m going for to see my gal. She’s standing on the tips of her toes waiting for me now.”

  The rabbits lit out for the hollow logs where those stomping big feet couldn’t get nowhere near them.

  “Don’t tread on no white-folks’ toes, Candy-Man,” Little Bo said. “Because the white-folks is first-come.”

  Candy-Man Beechum flung a leg over the rail fence just as if it had been a hoe handle to straddle. He stood for a minute astride the fence, looking at the black boy. It was getting dark in the swamps, and he had ten miles to go.

  “Me and white-folks don’t mix,” Candy-Man told him, “just as long as they leave me be, I skin their mules for them, and I snake their cypress logs, but when the day is done, I’m long gone where the white-folks ain’t are.”

  Owls in the trees began to take on life. Those whooing birds were glad to see that setting sun.

  The black boy in the mule yard scratched his head and watched the sun go down. If he didn’t have all those mules to feed, and if he had had a two-bit piece in his pocket, he’d have liked to tag along with Candy-Man. It was Saturday night, and there’d be a barrelful of catfish frying in town that evening. He wished he had some of that good-smelling cat.

  “Before the time ain’t long,” Little Bo said, “I’m going to get me myself a gal.”

  “Just be sure she ain’t Candy-Man’s, boy, and I’ll give you a helping hand.”

  He flung the other leg over the split-rail fence and struck out for the high land. Ten miles from the swamps to the top of the ridge, and his trip would be done. The bushes whipped around his legs, where his legs had been. He couldn’t be waiting for the back-strike of no swamp-country bushes. Up the log road, and across the bottom land, taking three corn rows at a stride, Candy-Man Beechum was on his way.

  There were some colored boys taking their time in the big road. He was up on them before they had time to turn their heads around.

  “Make way for these flapping feet, boys,” he shouted. “Here I come!”

  “Where you going, Candy-Man?”

  They had to do a lot of running to keep up with him. They had to hustle to match those legs four feet long. He made their breath come short.

  “Somebody asked me where I’m going,” Candy-Man said. “I got me a yellow gal, and I’m on my way to pay her some attention.”

  “You’d better toot your horn, Candy-Man, before you open her door. Yellow gals don’t like to be taken by surprise.”

  “Boy, you’re tooting the truth, except that you don’t know the whyfor of what you’re saying. Candy-Man’s gal always waits for him right at the door.”

  “Saturday-night bucks sure have to hustle along. They have to strike pay before the Monday-morning whistle starts whipping their ears.”

  The boys fell behind, stopping to blow and wheeze. There was no keeping up, on a Saturday night, with the seven-foot mule skinner on his way.

  The big road was too crooked and curvy for Candy-Man. He struck out across the fields, headed like a plumb line for a dishful of frying catfish. The lights of the town came up to meet him in the face like a swarm of lightning bugs. Eight miles to town, and two more to go, and he’d be rapping on that yellow gal’s door.

  Back in the big road, when the big road straightened out, Candy-Man swung into town. The old folks riding, and the young ones walking, they all made way for those flapping feet. The mules to the buggies and the sports in the middle of the road all got aside to let him through.

  “What’s your big hurry, Candy-Man?”

  “Take care my dust don’t choke you blind, niggers. I’m on my way.”

  “Where to, Candy-Man?”

  “I got a gal what’s waiting right at her door. She don’t like for to be kept waiting.”

  “Better slow down and cool those heels, Candy-Man, because you’re coming to the white-folks’ town. They don’t like niggers stepping on their toes.”

  “When the sun goes down, I’m on my own. I can’t be stopping to see what color people be.”

  The old folks clucked, and the mules began to trot. They didn’t like the way that big coon talked.

  “How about taking me along, Candy-Man?” the young bucks begged. “I’d like to grab me a chicken off a hen-house roost.”

  “Where I’m going I’m the cock of the walk. I gouge my spurs in all strange feathers. Stay away, black boy, stay away.”

  Down the street he went, sticking to the middle of the road. The sidewalks couldn’t hold him when he was in a hurry like that. A plateful of frying catfish, and he would be on his way. That yellow gal was waiting, and there was no time to lose. Eight miles covered, and two short ones to go. That sawmill fireman would have to pull on that Monday-morning whistle like it was the rope to the promised land.

  The smell of the fish took him straight to the fish-house door. Maybe they were mullets, but they smelled just as good. There wasn’t enough time to order up a special dish of fins.

  He had his hand on the restaurant door. When he had his supper, he would be on his way. He could see that yellow gal waiting for him only a couple of miles away.

  All those boys were sitting at their meal. The room was full of hungry people just like him. The stove was full of frying fish, and the barrel was only halfway used. There was enough good eating for a hundred hungry men.

  He still had his hand on the fish-house door, and his nose was soaking it in. If he could have his way about it, some of these days he was going to buy himself a whole big barrel of catfish and eat them every one.

  “What’s your hurry, Candy-Man?”

  “No time to waste, white-boss. Just let me be.”

  The night policeman snapped open the handcuffs, and reached for his arms, Candy-Man stepped away.

  “I reckon I’d better lock you up. It’ll save a lot of trouble. I’m getting good and tired of chasing fighting niggers all over town every Saturday night.”

  “I never hurt a body in all my life, white-boss. And I sure don’t pick fights. You must have the wrong nigger, white-boss. You sure has got me wrong. I’m just passing through for to see my gal.”

  “I reckon I’ll play safe and lock you up till Monday morning just the same. Reach out your hands for these cuffs, nigger.”

  Candy-Man stepped away. His yellow gal was on his mind. He didn’t feel like passing her up for no iron-bar jail. He stepped away.

  “I’ll shoot you down, nigger. One more step, and I’ll blast away.”

  “White-b
oss, please just let me be. I won’t even stop to get my supper, and I’ll shake my legs right out of town. Because I just got to see my gal before the Monday-morning sun comes up.”

  Candy-Man stepped away. The night policeman threw down the handcuffs and jerked out his gun. He pulled the trigger at Candy-Man, and Candy-Man fell down.

  “There wasn’t no cause for that, white-boss. I’m just a big black nigger with itching feet. I’d a heap rather be traveling than standing still.”

  The people came running, but some of them turned around and went the other way. Some stood and looked at Candy-Man while he felt his legs to see if they could hold him up. He still had two miles to go before he could reach the top of the ridge.

  The people crowded around, and the night policeman put away his gun. Candy-Man tried to get up so he could be getting on down the road. That yellow gal of his was waiting for him at her door, straining on the tips of her toes.

  “White-boss, I sure am sorry you had to go and shoot me down. I never bothered white-folks, and they sure oughtn’t bother me. But there ain’t much use in living if that’s the way it’s going to be. I reckon I’ll just have to blow out the light and fade away. Just reach me a blanket so I can cover my skin and bones.”

  “Shut up, nigger,” the white-boss said. “If you keep on talking with that big mouth of yours, I’ll just have to pull out my gun again and hurry you on.”

  The people drew back to where they wouldn’t be standing too close. The night policeman put his hand on the butt of his gun, where it would be handy, in case.

  “If that’s the way it’s to be, then make way for Candy-Man Beechum, because here I come.”

  (First published in Kneel to the Rising Sun)

  Saturday Afternoon

  TOM DENNY SHOVED the hunk of meat out of his way and stretched out on the meat block. He wanted to lie on his back and rest. The meat block was the only comfortable place in the butcher shop where a man could stretch out and Tom just had to rest every once in a while. He could prop his foot on the edge of the block, swing the other leg across his knee and be fairly comfortable with a hunk of rump steak under his head. The meat was nice and cool just after it came from the icehouse. Tom did that. He wanted to rest himself a while and he had to be comfortable on the meat block. He kicked off his shoes so he could wiggle his toes.