Mississippi Cotton (11 page)

“What’d the Browns do?” Mr. Hightower asked.

“They lost. Nine to one.”

“Maybe you ought to sign up with them, Earl,” Cousin Carol said.

“Oh, yeah. Ya think so?”

Probably the favorite baseball team in Mississippi next to the Jackson Senators was the St. Louis Cardinals. But some followed the pitiful St. Louis Browns, the American League team in St. Louis. The Cardinals mostly had pretty good teams, but the Browns stunk up the place.

She poured some more coffee in his cup. “Anybody that eats rattlesnakes and panthers for breakfast oughta be able to hit a curveball.”

We had to get all the equipment into Mr. Hightower’s pickup. Since he rented from Cousin Trek, who supplied the hardware, Earl provided the labor. Mr. Hightower did use his own truck, but then most everybody did. We loaded hoes, rakes, shovels and a big corrugated tin barrel of water. It had a single dipper hooked to a small chain clipped to the top. That made me a little nervous, not having your own cup. I hoped the hot Delta sun would kill the cooties.

“Want ‘em back here at noon to eat?” Mr. Hightower asked. He had just slammed the hood on his truck. I think he was checking his oil because I saw him wipe something with a piece of paper.

“No, I gave them some sandwiches. Just find them a shady spot to eat. If they don’t die, then have them back in time for supper.”

After we loaded the truck, the three of us piled in the back. I was wearing my worn blue jeans, white tee shirt and baseball cap. Casey and Taylor had their denim overalls, no shirts, and straw hats. It would be hot. It would be dirty. But I would get almost two dollars when the day was over.

All Farley would get would be to drive around town with his friends and talk about Dixie Daniels and her progressive bosoms. I almost felt sorry for him.

My back was about to break and it wasn’t even ten. In order to hoe you had to bend, and staying in a bent position while moving nothing but your arms back and forth and shuffling your feet along the long rows left you with a backache. The sweatband on my baseball cap had absorbed all it could, and the salt was being carried by the sweat upward around the sides and out to the bill.

If a cow got near me she would lick my head off. I waited as long as I could, to avoid the water can, the one with the common dipper. But I finally surrendered after over two hours and sucked down two dippers, scoured with everybody else’s spit and cooties.

BB was in fact the relentless worker Cousin Trek had talked about. I believe behind a mule he could have turned more ground than a tractor driven by a stock car driver. Taylor and Casey worked hard, too. They sweated and got dirty and drank spit-water, but they didn’t seem as worn as I did. Casey was two years younger than me but fifteen yards ahead of me in his row, and I was glad Cousin Trek was paying me by the hour instead of by the yard. As I watched my country cousins, I knew why Farley had had such a fight on his hands with that little guy a couple of years ago.

“Well, Mr. Jake, I can tell you ain’t a lazy boy.” BB smiled that big bright smile I had seen yesterday. “Your momma and daddy make you work at home, I can tell.” He hoed a couple of shallow weeds in my row that I had missed. “Don’t worry if you stay a little behind. This work in the fields is as hard a work as there is. And this Mississippi cotton makes you work hardest. That’s one reason it’s the best cotton—it’s the hardest to get. But the best kind of work is hard work. And the best crop’s the one hardest to get.”

I don’t know if what he said was a riddle, or if I was just too tired and dizzy to understand.

I took my cap off and ran my hands through my hair just to shake off the sweat. BB’s talking to me gave me a chance to straighten my back, take a break. Maybe he knew that. “I never heard that—that hard work is the best work. I thought you only worked hard so someday you didn’t have to work hard.”

BB pulled out a red and white bandana from his back pocket and wiped his face. He smiled that big black and white smile again.

“Well, lots of folks think that I reckon. But I think they’re wrong. Yes, I do. I think they’re wrong.”

He looked at the sun, holding his head at a sharp angle, and I don’t think he even blinked. The sweat reappeared almost as soon as he had wiped it. He seemed strange to me in a way, but it was like he had a special wisdom, too. Sort of like my daddy or Cousin Trek. It was kind of like he knew just what to say at the right time. I wondered why he had joined the army and gone off to war when he had had a chance to go to college and play football.

“Well, we’ll be eatin’ dinner in a bit. You’ll get your second wind by then.”

Second wind, I thought. Any wind would be nice.

“Hey look!” Taylor yelled across the long rows. “A king snake. Who wants him?”

“You can have him for dinner,” BB yelled back. “If he don’t have you.” He laughed. “Don’t forget it’s August. Only time you gotta be careful of king snakes.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Not sure,” BB said. “Just in August, for some reason they’ll latch onto you and squeeze you, they say.”

I would have taken my shirt off, but it was so wet that it felt cool clinging to my body, like standing in front of a fan after getting out of the tub. I felt almost cold in the shade by comparison to the fields, and nearly five hours of dust settling on me had turned to mud. I was just glad to sit down for a while; out of the sun; away from bugs; away from spiders; away from snakes; and away from the cotton.

We had plopped down in front of a large shade tree close to the road, and filled the jelly glasses from the thermos of iced tea Cousin Carol had put in Taylor’s bag. As soon as I poured mine I gulped it down before I even looked to see what kind of sandwiches I had.

In the distance I saw the old pickup that had been parked at BB’s house yesterday. It was approaching at a pace that made it look hot and tired, struggling with its own life. A plume of white smoke trailed from the exhaust. The rattles made distinct sounds, like a jazz percussion on the rough road. Smoke, Farley had told me, was a sign that a car was burning oil. Ben Samuels pulled off the road and onto the grassy shoulder.

“Hey, Daddy. What’re are you doin’ here? I thought you’d be workin’ all day at home.”

Ben walked up slowly, limping. Yesterday when I had met him I guessed he was about sixty something, although I hadn’t noticed a limp. I figured it was one of those old people things I had heard my mother and daddy talk about, like arthritis or lumbago or something. Old people tended to limp and get bent with age. It was kind of sad. Both Ben and his son had to limp around the fields.

“Well, I figured you boys would like summin’ with yo dinner—summin’ cool and sweet.”

I knew before he said it—watermelon. Sugar cane and watermelon both were sweet, but only watermelon was cool and sweet, because you could keep it iced down.

“Julius, I’ll let you tote it outta the truck. Been keepin’ it in a wash bucket of ice water.”

Taylor and Casey and I lay back against the trunk and relaxed like a trio of hoboes traveling through the county. I was tired, but happy as a pig in slop that I had made about a dollar so far. I began to struggle with a tuna fish sandwich, pulling at the corner of it with my teeth, which were exhausted just like the rest of me. I couldn’t understand how even your teeth could get tired. Another slug of iced tea. It was a nice dinnertime. Iced tea from my own glass and now a piece of watermelon—my own germs, my own cooties. And shade.

“Looka here, boys,” BB said. “Cold watermelon.” He had it hoisted on his shoulder and carried it as effortlessly as if it were a jar of honey. He put it down beside Ben who had brought a lunch pail from his truck, then took a seat in the shade.

“Thanks,” we all said.

“Well, you boys are mighty welcome. You deserve it, workin’ hard as y’all have.” He opened his lunch pail and pulled out a hard-boiled egg. He took out a small salt shaker, sprinkled then chomped more than half the egg in one bite. “Is Mr. Earl comin’ by ‘fore quittin’ time?”

“He might, Daddy,” BB said. “Said he was goin’ into town, then he was goin’ to check on his field hands over on that place down across the road. What you need him for?”

“Well, the sheriff come by wantin’ to ask some questions ‘bout that man o’er at the river.”

I couldn’t help asking, “Are you talkin’ about that dead man they found in Greenville?”

Ben looked surprised. He finished his egg and took out his pocket knife and began to scrape the bowl of his pipe.

“Why, Mr. Jake, whadda you know ‘bout dat bidness?” He chuckled, a light kind of curious laughter that made me laugh a little bit too, though I wasn’t sure why.

Taylor and Casey looked at me. They wanted to know too if it had been Ben, and was the “Julius” I had heard about at the bus station our BB?

Cousin Trek and Cousin Carol hadn’t said anything about the dead man since I got to their house Friday. I didn’t know if they even knew about it, but they were just like my mother and daddy when it came to stuff like that. They had probably read about it in the paper or somebody had told them, but it just wasn’t the thing to do, talk about such things in front of us boys.

“I jus’ heard some deputy or somebody talkin’ about it. The waitress had asked out loud about it. I jus’ heard them talkin’.”

BB had taken a large butcher knife from Ben’s lunch pail. He cut the watermelon right down the middle then cut the two halves in half. It was dark red, ripe red, and sweet.

“Well, we jus’ found dis man in the river. He was dead. Dat’s all we really know. He was dead. An’ you really couldn’t tell who he was. Looked like the fish’d been gnawin’ on him a little, maybe,” Ben said.

He took a box of wooden matches from his overalls and struck one. He let the flame burn almost down to his fingers—like his thoughts had momentarily drifted—before he rested it in the bowl and puffed up a cloud of sweet, cherry-smelling smoke.

“Daddy, now don’t scare these boys,” BB said.

“Aw, dey gonna hear ‘bout it sometime. It’s all over da county by now.” He turned toward BB. “Don’t ya think?”

“Well, what’s Mr. Hightower got to do with it?” Casey asked.

Taylor slapped him on top of the head with two fingers. “Shut up, dope. That’s none of your business.” The truth was, Taylor probably wanted to know as bad as Casey did, as bad as I did.

Ben spoke again. “Well, I jus’ wanted to ask him if he knew why the sheriff was askin’ ‘bout Looty.”

“Looty?” I asked.

“Yessir, Mr. Jake—Looty. The sheriff was askin’ ‘bout Looty and if I’d seen him around lately and what he was doin’ and things like that. I don’t know what he thinks it got to do with dat dead man.”

“Well, maybe because he was shot with a .22,” I said. Everybody turned and looked at me. I hadn’t even mentioned to Casey and Taylor that I had heard it was a .22.

“How do you know that?” BB asked. “That he was shot with a .22?”

“That’s what the deputy said at the bus station,” I said. “They were talkin’ about it and about a man and his son ‘Julius’ who had found him while they were fishin’.”

“Well, I’ll be. So you already know ‘bout this business,” BB said. “And you’re sure he said it was a .22?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Well, well, Julius, maybe that s’plains it—the sheriff askin’ ‘bout ol’ Looty, I mean. I wonder if they’s thinkin’ old Looty is doin’ more’n shootin’ chickens now.”

“Well, let’s jus’ forget about it, Daddy. It’s nothing we need to be talking about anymore; none of our business, now.”

I felt important, like I knew something that only the police knew. I took a big bite of watermelon and leaned back against the tree. Taylor and Casey looked at me with a jealous look. I guess because I knew something they didn’t.

“What did you tell the sheriff, Daddy?” BB propped himself up with one arm on the ground, holding a slice of watermelon with the other. He took a small bite then spit a seed.

“I jus’ told him Looty was Looty. He come ‘round from time to time. Came by jus’ de other day offerin’ to shoot birds in my corn.” Ben put his pipe on the ground and began scraping the remainder of his watermelon from the rind with his knife.

“Well, I don’t think you need to see Mr. Hightower about it. I think we know what the sheriff is thinkin’ now,” BB said. “They know Looty spent time on the county farm for shootin’ what he wasn’t supposed to be shootin’, and they gonna see what he was up to before they found that man. I’ll bet you a nickel that’s what it is. Jus’ makes sense to me.”

Just then, we saw Mr. Hightower coming. His pickup rattled about as much as Ben’s but didn’t show the trail of smoke. He pulled up behind Ben’s truck and got out, his back and underarms soaked in sweat. He walked briskly as if he had all the energy in the world. His Stetson was pulled down shading his face, the crown soaked with sweat, like my cap.

“Well, BB, Ben. How we doin’?”

“Fine, fine, Mr. Earl. Jus’ brought these hard workin’ boys some watermelon for dinner.”

“Waste of good melon, Ben. They ain’t worked but half a day.”

Ben and BB laughed. Casey and Taylor and I sort of laughed.