The Whipping Boy (2 page)

***

An event in its own way extraordinary happened to Tom Freshour, one of the boys on the Armstrong Academy bleachers. Someone took a photograph of the thirty-four Choctaw orphans who'd been brought here to see what happened to criminals, but the photograph was a dud, the boys' faces all like clouds of light and shadow. It is impossible to guess which of them is Tom Freshour; being sixteen or seventeen (his birth date was not known), he must be one of the four or five tallest boys. The front door and window of the building behind the orphans, however, are perfectly in focus, as if the photograph had been intended to be of dekker hardware. A Closed sign hangs on the big double door, evidence of Dekker's status as a wholesaler, since no retailer in that terrible depression year would have shunned the traffic brought by a hanging.

Sometime during Johnny Pointer's long demise, the front door of the building in this photograph opened, and through it walked the usher of young Tom Freshour's fate in the person of one Mr. Bob MacGinnis, hardware salesman. MacGinnis had been sent out to find errand boys. Seeing the entire bleachers of candidates, MacGinnis went up to them and announced, “Any of you want work? I need three boys.” Most of them would probably have delivered a message to hell to get away from the spectacle on the gallows and the cold rain they were being forced to stand in, but MacGinnis's appearance was so sudden, his request so unexpected, that none responded.

For these boys, raised in the stolid, regimented gloom of an orphanage in the remote woods of the Indian Territory, it had been a day of perpetual wonders, new sights and sensations one after another starting at six o'clock that morning. First the trip on the train, which had caused some of the boys to get sick, others to hold on to their seats in fear. Few of them had ever traveled except on their two feet or riding a plow mule, and hurding along at fifty miles an hour had been breathtaking. Then there was the spectacle of the crowd at the hanging, a throng of people including women costumed in the most unbelievable fashion, with the whole front of their dresses open in such a way that invited one to wonder what was in there—about which few of the boys had clear ideas. Stories circulating at the academy regarding the female sex came from boys who were under eight years old (the academy would take no older) who'd had sisters before becoming orphans, and their descriptions were passed on with such inaccuracy that girls sprouted all kinds of strange anatomical features. Tom Freshour had sometimes sneaked off to the scalding shed and passed time with one of the washing ladies on the day she worked, at least giving him some contact with the opposite sex. But this hardly softened the blow of seeing these powdered, perfumed, white-skinned creatures with their dresses gapped down the front. In addition to these shocks there had been the hanging (to these boys actually not the strangest of the day's events), the surging hysteria of the crowd, and now this nervous-looking man who'd suddenly appeared asking for volunteers for what? A job?

Failing to get any response, MacGinnis found their principal, a pokerfaced missionary named James Schoot, and told him that he needed three boys for regular employment.

The prospect of having three fewer to feed on his tight budget surely must have delighted the principal, although he was always anxious about losing “moral control” over the boys. Reverend Schoot was rigorous about moral control, which he administered liberally, regularly, at the drop of a hat, to their flesh. A teacher who briefly worked at the orphanage noted in his diary that Reverend Schoot “commonly held regular weekly disciplinary floggings as well as daily beatings. I have seen some boys beaten as often as six times per day.” Handling so many beatings every day along with all of his other responsibilities must have been tiring work for the Reverend, and one would think he'd be happy to have fewer to perform; but if he worried about releasing the three boys, that would be understandable, since one of them might go into the world, get a pistol, come back to the Armstrong Academy, and pay him back for several thousand whippings.

Mission headquarters, however, would doubtless be pleased when he reported that three older charges had been gainfully employed in the world, so he swallowed whatever concerns he had and prepared to make a bargain. He demanded that the boys' first month's wages be sent to him, for which consideration he gave up all responsibility and control. MacGinnis agreed to this condition, he and the Reverend shook hands, and the boys were on their own.

In this way Tom Freshour, Hack Deneuve, and Joel Mayes were released from the cloistered orphanage, the only place they had ever known, into the world.

 

 

 

 

A
S A SALESMAN
who had worked at Dekker Hardware for more than twenty years, W. W. “Jake” Jaycox was present for the regular monthly sales meeting being held that day at the store. Neither he nor any of the other salesmen was aware of exactly what was going on across the street. Even later, Jake remained uninterested in the story of Johnny Pointer's hanging, despite the fact that he'd been across the street when it happened. Jake was pragmatic, hardheaded, and indifferent to how a man died who had shot a couple of his pals in the head while they were asleep. Having sold hardware in the Indian and Oklahoma territories for twenty-some years, Jake took a dim view of outlaws and lawmen, criminals and courts—and he devoted as little thought to any of them as possible.

The “big office,” where the salesmen were waiting, was on the east side of the building, and their view didn't include the gallows. All they could see out the window was the Dekker wagon yard, which was packed with hacks and farm wagons of every description. When the rain started after noon, Jake wondered why the lot didn't begin to clear out, but he wondered more about why Mr. Dekker was late for the sales meeting—which never had happened before in his memory. He could see Mr. Dekker's plain Studebaker wagon and his son Ernest's fancy team parked in the crowd of other rigs, making him suspect that the two of them were in the old man's office, across the display room on the other side of the building. But punctual sales meetings were a sacred event, and he couldn't imagine why the old man would be so late if he was already here, unless he was having an extremely serious talk with his son.

For years, Jake had hoped that Ernest Dekker would find employment elsewhere. If his father got sick or feeble and Ernest took over, the place would surely go to hell. Ernest was not a hardware man. He was a gambler and socialite who dressed sharp and loafed around town with the straw-hat-and-palm-fan crowd, bird hunting, fishing, playing cards, watching horse races, chasing skirts, dabbling in investment schemes, talking real estate. But none of his interests had anything to do with hardware. Dekker Wholesale sold more than twenty-seven thousand separate items, including heavy hardware, sporting goods, enamelware and tinware, pumps, house and commercial furnishings, mechanics' tools, and farm implements, and Ernest didn't know a compression cock from a croquet set. He had never worked at the front desk or in the stockroom, nor had he gone out on the road. Exactly what he did on his occasional visits to the store Jake didn't know. Lately he had been hanging around Charles McMurphy, the treasurer, so apparently he helped with the figures, although Jake couldn't see Ernest stooping to such a lowly occupation as adding and subtracting. As vice president he pulled down a far higher salary than any of the salesmen, but he'd never to Jake's knowledge sold a stick of merchandise.

Waiting for the meeting to start, Jake daydreamed that the old man was finally in there giving Ernest what he'd long deserved, an invitation to get a job somewhere else. Shrewd and plain-dealing with most people, Mr. Dekker had always been soft on Ernest, probably because he was his only living son. Another son had died at the age of ten, and his one daughter had married and moved away years before. They had little in common: the father was a rough-and-ready commercial pioneer, while his son was of the leisured class. The old excuse for Ernest was that he had wild oats to sow, but now that he was near forty, that had worn thin.

The white sky had turned black, the office was dark, and Jake noticed that two or three wagons had torn out of the yard in an awful big hurry. He assumed it was just the weather. The waiting teams were restive, rattling the traces and whinnying as if they didn't particularly want to be pulling home in a storm. Peculiar noises were coming from the direction of the gallows, but none of the salesmen walked out front to see what was going on. The old man had been known to fire a salesman for going to the privy during one of these meetings, so they all stuck tight in the darkening room, chewing, waiting, wondering.

Bob MacGinnis was complaining about how poor things had got in his district. MacGinnis had been hired recently to replace J. D. Plagman, who'd committed suicide at the Wyandott Hotel in Texarkana, apparently because he was unable to sell hardware in southwest Arkansas—a sad fact, since the Angel of Commerce herself couldn't have sold much hardware after more than a year of the Panic. MacGinnis was not doing any better than Plagman had before he shot himself. “It's deader'n a nut down there,” he said. “Nobody buyin much as nails.”

Jack Peters wheezed in his high voice, “That's the way it is everywhere. The boom in Oklahoma Territory is a damn bust.”

Dandy Pruitt and Marvin Beele both threw in their two cents about how low the Indian Nations had got. “What little you sell, you can't count on being delivered. Trains ain't running half the time,” Marvin said, quickly bobbing his head down and bull's-eying the spittoon.

When Mr. Dekker finally did walk into the big office, at nearly a quarter after twelve, Jake was further mystified. The old man always started meetings urgently, by saying, “Let's see if you sons of bitches have sold any hardware this month.” Today he came in and sat down and looked at them—toward them—with no particular expression except what appeared to Jake to be a kind of light glowing around his eyes. He said nothing. Mr. Dekker was a lean man of average height, tending to bald, with a fierce sharp beak of a nose and close-set eyes. He was waiting for somebody else to arrive.

After a time, Ernest came in. With one eyebrow floating high and a flushed look, the vice president took out a pre-rolled cigarette and put it into a black ivory holder. Jack Peters, the salesman for Oklahoma Territory, leaned out to light it. Unlike his father, Ernest was substantial in size, and he put on magisterial, impatient airs around “inferiors.” He looked over the men and asked Bob MacGinnis to come outside. After talking with MacGinnis for a few minutes, Ernest returned alone. The salesmen looked around at one another suspiciously. This was a very odd start for a sales meeting.

At last Mr. Dekker said, “You'd better tell em.”

Ernest glanced at his father and took the ivory holder from his mouth. “All right,” he said briskly. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, men, but it appears the Panic has finally got to us. The Mercantile Exchange Bank has called in our credit. They have demand notes and we have no choice but to meet them.”

Jack Peters made a little
oof
sound, like he'd been hit in the gut. Marvin Beele rolled his eyes around to Jake. Pete Crapo of central Arkansas merely continued to look puzzled, his normal expression. Jake noticed that the old man, with head cocked back and eyes slightly narrowed, watched Ernest closely.

Ernest scowled at his cigarette. “Mr. Bradley, chief teller, notified us this morning. It was completely unexpected.”

Jake knew something of Bradley. He'd seen him around town, running in the same crowd as Ernest.

Ernest continued, “I don't have to tell you how precarious this situation is. We'll have to take immediate action, or they'll seize our merchandise and shut us down. You realize we have no choice in the matter. We're declaring war against debt. We'll have to collect all accounts. Those of you who don't succeed I'm going to have to let go. I'm giving some of you couriers and I want you to keep em damn busy.”

Couriers? As Ernest talked on, Jake's disbelief mounted. Heat ascended the back of his neck. He couldn't believe the old man would even listen to the idea of making an all-out collection sweep now. Nobody in the territory had any money. It was shipping season after a bad harvest on top of a panic. Arkansas, Oklahoma, and all of the Indian Nations were in turmoil. The stores were tighter than he'd ever seen them. Business was in hibernation. The store owners were operating on bank debt and faith that the Panic would end.

And why had Ernest taken over the meeting?

MacGinnis came back in the office pushing three rangy-looking half-breeds. They were shivery and green around the gills. MacGinnis looked like he'd seen a ghost. “The man they're hanging over there ain't dead yet!” he said breathlessly. “He's been alive since twelve noon. Goddamnit, he's up there walkin, like . . . like he can't get up a flight of stairs!”

“Maybe he's going the wrong way,” Ernest said. “He ought to turn around and try the other direction. Where'd you find these boys?”

“They're from the Choctaw orphanage near Durant. Principal's out there waiting to talk to you.”

“Are you young men Christians?” Ernest asked.

“Yes sir,” two of them barked, skinny boys blinking their eyes and squinting through the gloom, as if they had no idea where they were. The third, who was taller and stouter, a well-featured young man, said nothing at all. He looked around the room with what appeared to be defiant silence.

The boys stood dripping before the scowling, chewing, tense salesmen.

“Choctaws, huh?” said Ernest Dekker. “Good. You can generally trust them for courier work better'n white boys.”

Peters wheezed a little laugh, and an awkward silence followed.

“We use couriers in town,” Ernest said. “Now I want some of you men—the ones with the most money to collect—to have your own personal couriers. We can't count on the express or the post offices in the Nations. I want you men out there working the customers, and I want these couriers to make continuous delivery of everything over a hundred dollars. We have to show the bank, every day, that we're on the right track.”