All God's Dangers (29 page)

I said, “No sir, I haven't been in here but just a little while.”

The white lady spoke up too; said, “No, he hasn't been here very long. I'm tryin to find him some shoes.”

He said, “You been in here the longest, you too hard to suit.”

I said, “No sir, all I'm tryin to do is buy me some shoes to match the measure for my children's foots.”

She said, “No, he hasn't been here but a short while.”

Good God, when she said that he grabbed that old shoe up—he didn't like her to speak up for me—grabbed that shoe up and hit at my head with it. I blocked his lick off. Well, when I blocked his lick off—he'd a hit me side the head with that old shoe, or on the face; no doubt he woulda cut me up—he throwed that shoe down. He seed he couldn't hit me with it, I was goin to block him off. He dropped that shoe back down on the counter and out from between there he come and run down to the low end of the store. And Mr. Sadler kept shovels, hoes, plow tools, and every kind of thing down there, on the low end, back end of the store. Chase runned down there and picked him up one of these long-handled shovels and he whirled around and come back—he just showed that he was goin to split me down with that shovel. He come back—he begin to get close to me and I sort of turned myself to him one-sided.

I said, “Don't you hit me with that shovel”—told him to his head, didn't bite my tongue—“don't you hit me with that shovel.”

He wouldn't say nothin. Just stood there and looked at me, wouldn't move up on me. Kept that shovel drawed, lookin at me, lookin at me, lookin at me. I just dared him to hit me with that shovel—I never told him what I'd do and what I wouldn't. Well,
he stood there and let into cussin. He disregarded that white lady, just stood there with that shovel on him, cussin me, lookin like all he wanted was a chance. I'd a turned my head and he'd a hit me, looked like from the way he acted.

All right. We got up a loud talk and all the people in the store noticed it. After a while, a fellow by the name of Howard Crabtree—old Dr. Crabtree was a horse doctor and this was his son—runned up there and started his big mouth. And this cripple man Chase tellin me all the time, “Get out of here, you black bastard. Get out of here.” Tryin to run me out the store and I hadn't done a thing to him.

And this Crabtree, he runned up, “Naw, he aint goin to hit you, but goddamnit, get out of here like he tells you.”

I said, “Both of you make me get out. Both of you make me get out.”

Couldn't move me. The white lady had done disbanded and got away from there. I stood my ground when this here Howard Crabtree runned up and taken Chase's part. I said, “I aint gettin nowhere. Both of you make me get out.”

Chase runned back and put the shovel where he got it from and down the aisle on the far side of the store he went. And there was a ring of guns there, breech-loaders. I kept my eyes on him, watchin him. I weren't goin nowhere. The white lady went on back to huntin my shoes after Chase left from there—he come out from the back of the store and went on down to where that ring of guns was, sittin right in the front as you go in the door. And he grabbed up one of them single barrel breech-loaders—that's when a white man befriended me and several more done so until I left town. There was a white gentleman clerkin in there, Mr. Tom Sherman—I seed this here Henry Chase grab that gun and break it down, run his hand in his pocket and take out a shell and put it in there. To tin shells in his pocket so if anything happened that he needed to shoot somebody—picked up a gun and broke it down and unbreeched it and run his hand in his pocket, pulled out a shell and stuck it in there, then breeched it back up and commenced a lookin for a clear openin to shoot at me. I just considered it for a bluff—he weren't goin to shoot me there in that man's store, surely. And I watched him close, he jumpin around lookin, first one way then the other, holdin that gun in his hands, lookin. And Mr. Tom Sherman just quit his business when he seed Chase drop a shell in that gun,
walked right on up to him and snatched the gun away. Chase didn't resist Mr. Sherman—that was a heavy-built man. Mr. Sherman took that gun out of his hands, unbreeched it, took that shell out of it, set the gun back in the ring and stood there by that ring of guns. Out the store Chase went.

Well, by that time, the white lady done got my shoes. I turned around and paid her for em. She wrapped em nice and I took the shoes and went on out the back door—it was handy; I come in the back door and I went back out it. I didn't go down the front. Chase'd gone out of there and I didn't want no trouble with him.

So, out the back door I went and I turned to the left and walked on out in the middle of the street, goin to my wagon. And when I got out to where I could see clear, Aunt Betsey Culver, Uncle Jim Culver's second wife, was sittin in the street on a buggy. Uncle Jim was over there by Sadler's store, he seed all that happened there. I walked up to the buggy and howdyed with my auntie—didn't talk about that trouble neither. I just set my shoes in the foot of the buggy and was standin there talkin with her. And after a while I happened to look down the street and here come that cripple Chase fellow—he was a young fellow too, and he walked in kind of a hoppin way, one leg drawed back—and the police was with him, old man Bob Leech, settle-aged white man. They was lookin for me and they come up to me quick. Chase pointed at me and said, “That's him, standin right yonder; that's him, standin there at that buggy.”

Old man Leech walked up to me, looked at me, looked me over. And by me standin kind of sideways at Chase in the store, he done went and told the police that I acted just like I had a pistol in my pocket. Well, he never did see my hand. I had on a big heavy overcoat that day, just what the weather called for. So, he pointed me out to the police; police walked on up to me but wouldn't come right up to me, not very close.

He said, “Consider yourself under arrest.”

I looked at him, said, “Consider myself under arrest for what?”

“Uh, consider yourself under arrest.”

I asked him again, “Consider myself under arrest for what?”

“That's all right; that's all right.”

Come up to me and patted me, feelin for a gun. I said, “You want to search me”—I just grabbed that big overcoat and throwed it back—“search me, search me, just as much as you please. Search me.”

He got up close enough to run his hands around me, feelin my hip pockets. He didn't find no gun. I had no gun, I didn't tote no gun around thataway. He said—he talked kind of through his nose, funny. And I called him in question about every word he spoke to me. He said, “Well, c'mon go with me.”

I said, “Go with you where?”

“Gowanup-t-th-maya-uvtawn.”

I couldn't understand him.

“Gowanup-t-th-maya-uvtawn.”

I said, “To the mayor of town?”

He talkin thataway and I couldn't hardly understand him, talkin through his nostrils, looked like. I understood him but I just kept him cross-talked. Well, I started not to go—my mind told me, ‘Go ahead with him, don't buck him.'

He carried me on down the street and hit the left hand side of town goin in—left my shoes in my uncle's buggy. And I went on. Got down there and went up the stairs—the stairsteps come down to the walkway. The mayor of town was upstairs. And by golly, when I got up there, who was the mayor of town? Doctor Collins! Dr. Collins knowed me well, been knowin me a long time. Walked on into his office and old man Leech, the police, spoke to him. And before he could say anything, Dr. Collins seed who was with him. He said, “Why, hello. What you doin with Shaw up here?”

“Well, him and Henry Chase got into it down there in Sadler's store.”

Dr. Collins said, “Um-hmm.” Dr. Collins was a pretty heavy-built man himself. He said, “Well, Mr. Leech, where is Chase?”

“He down there in town somewhere, in the streets.”

“Um-hmm.”

“And they got into it in Sadler's store.”

“Mr. Leech, go down there and get Chase and bring him up here.”

The old police went down and got Chase, brought him up there. He come up hip-hoppin, hip-hoppin—that's the way he walked, doin just thataway every step he took. Chase said, when he got up there, “Hi, Doc.”

Dr. Collins said, “Howdy, Henry.”

I was standin there listenin. He said, “Henry, did you and this darky—” he wouldn't say nigger neither; that was a white man, and there was some more of em in this country wouldn't call you nigger.
Dr. Collins said, “Henry, did you and this darky get into it down there in Sadler's store?”

He said, “Yeah.” But wouldn't tell nary a thing he done, uncalled for. “He was down there in Sadler's store—” wouldn't tell what I was waitin on or nothin, just told what he wanted Dr. Collins to know—“was down there in Sadler's store and we got into it”—wouldn't tell him what we got into it about—“and I told him to get out of there and he gived me a whole lot of impudent jaw.”

Dr. Collins said, “Um-hmm. Who seed that beside you, Henry?”

“Well, Howard Crabtree seed it.”

And the whole store seed it but none of em weren't busyin theirselves with it. Mr. Tom Sherman seed it and he went and took that gun away from him. Dr. Collins said, “Um-hmm. Well, go down, Mr. Leech, and get Howard Crabtree and bring him up here.”

Chase said, “And he kept his hand behind him like he had a gun in his hip pocket.”

Crabtree walked up with his big-talkin self. Dr. Collins said, “Crabtree, did you see this darky and Henry Chase get into it down there in Sadler's store?”

“I did. I did. I seed it every bit.”

“Well, Crabtree, would you—”

“He had his hand behind him—” told the same lie Chase told—“had his hand behind him and he kept a tellin Chase not to hit him, better not hit him, and givin up a lot of other impudent jaw.”

Dr. Collins said, “Um-hmm. Crabtree, would you swear that he had his hand in his hip pocket?”

“No, no”—he jumped back then—“no, I wouldn't swear he had his hand in his hip pocket, but he looked like he had it in there. I don't know where his hand was, he had on that big overcoat.”

“Um-hmm,” Dr. Collins said, “Um-hmm.”

Dr. Collins knowed me well. Never gived nobody no trouble, tended to my business, let other folks alone, I didn't meddle in things. And at that time I had a good name, right there in Apafalya, I'd been there since I was a little boy up till I was grown and after.

Dr. Collins said, “Well, the little old case don't amount to nothin. I'm just goin to throw it out.”

After Crabtree told him he wouldn't swear I had my hand in my hip pocket, Dr. Collins asked me, “Shaw, did you have a pistol?”

I said, “No, Doctor, I aint seed a pistol in I don't know when. I had no pistol.”

Chase allowed to him, “He went out the back way; he coulda carried it out there and stashed it.”

Well, good devil, just as sure as my Savior's at his restin place today, I didn't have no pistol, never thought about no pistol.

All right. They whirled and left from up there when Dr. Collins said he was just goin to throw the little case out. And when they started out, I started out right behind em. Dr. Collins throwed his finger at me—“Shaw, this way; Shaw, Shaw.”

I was lookin back at him and I stopped. He said, “Just be yourself and stay up here a few minutes; that'll give em time to get away from down there, clear em out, then you can go.”

I just made myself at home, stood there. After a while, Dr. Collins said, “Well, you can go ahead now. Mess don't amount to nothin nohow, that's the reason I throwed it out.”

When I got down the stairsteps onto the walkway, there was Mr. Harry Black, man I had done my guano dealin with, and there was a fellow went around there in Apafalya, heap of folks called him Tersh Hog—that was Mr. Bob Soule, went for a cousin to Cliff Soule. He lived out about a mile from Apafalya and he didn't take no backwater off nobody. If a thing weren't right, he were goin to fix it right. Some of em didn't like him because they had to pass around him, white folks. And I seed him walk the streets right there in Apafalya with his pistol in his—just like a law, only he'd carry his pistol in his coat pocket, and that handle was hangin out over the pocket. Didn't nobody give Mr. Bob Soule no trouble in Apafalya and nowheres else he went. So, Mr. Bob Soule was standin there at them steps when I come down, and Mr. Harry Black and Mr. Ed Hardy—I knowed them definitely and there was a couple more of em, bout five altogether standin there when I come down. They said, “Hello, Nate. Hello, Nate.”

I stopped and spoke to em polite and they was polite to me. Well, Uncle Jim Culver had done stood there too at the bottom of the steps while this trial business was goin on and he heard them white men speak this: “If that nigger comes down from up there with any charges against him, we goin to paint this damn place red.”

I didn't know—I didn't hear em say it. Uncle Jim told me, “They was standin there for a purpose. I done stood here and listened
at em. Said, ‘If that nigger comes down from up there with any charges against him, we goin to paint this damn place red.' ”

All of em knowed me well: I'd traded with Mr. Harry Black and Mr. Ed Hardy and they had passed confidence with me. And Mr. Bob Soule, he loved justice. When I walked down amongst em, all of em, I knowed em, looked in their faces, standin huddled there where the stairway hit the walkway. They was satisfied. They left there when I left.

Uncle Jim added his advice: “Things are hot here, son. Now you go on up the street and get your mules and wagon and turn around and go on back home.”

I said to myself, ‘The devil will happen before I do that.'

And he said, “Don't come back, don't come back through town. Go on home. Take your mules and go on home now.”