It was almost dark when I entered the house. I’d been watching from a distance, from beyond the silo, and I knew my mother and Gran were preparing supper. I was in enough trouble — being late for a meal would have only compounded the situation.
They were seated, and Pappy was about to bless the food when I walked through the door from the back porch and quietly took my seat. They looked at me, but I chose instead to stare at my plate. Pappy said a quick prayer, and the food was passed around. After a silence sufficiently long enough to build tension, my father said, “Where you been, Luke?”
“Down by the creek,” I said.
“Doin’ what?”
“Nothin’. Just lookin’ around.”
This sounded suspicious enough, but they let it pass. When all was quiet, Pappy, with perfect timing and with the devil in his voice, said, “You see any shitsnakes at the creek?”
He barely got the words out before he cracked up.
I looked around the table. Gran’s jaws were clenched as if she were determined not to smile. My mother covered her mouth with her napkin, but her eyes betrayed her; she wanted to laugh, too. My father had a large bite of something in his mouth, and he managed to chew it while keeping a straight face.
But Pappy was determined to howl. He roared at the end of the table while the rest of them fought to maintain their composure. “That was a good one, Luke!” he managed to say while catching his breath. “Served her right.”
I finally laughed, too, but not at my own actions. The sight of Pappy laughing so hard while the other three so gamely tried not to struck me as funny.
“That’s enough, Eli,” Gran said, finally moving her jaws.
I took a large bite of peas and stared at my plate. Things grew quiet again, and we ate for a while with nothing said.
After dinner, my father took me for a walk to the toolshed. On its door he kept a wooden hickory stick, one that he’d cut himself and polished to a shine. It was reserved for me.
I’d been taught to take my punishment like a man. Crying was forbidden, at least openly. In these awful moments, Ricky always inspired me. I’d heard horror stories of the beatings Pappy had given him, and never, according to his parents and mine, had he been brought to tears. When Ricky was a kid, a whipping was a challenge.
“That was a mean thing you did to Stacy,” my father began. “She was a guest on our farm, and she’s married to your cousin.”
“Yes sir.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“ ’Cause she said we were stupid and backward.” A little embellishment here wouldn’t hurt.
“She did?”
“Yes sir. I didn’t like her, neither did you or anybody else.”
“That may be true, but you still have to respect your elders. How many licks you think that’s worth?” The crime and the punishment were always discussed beforehand. When I bent over, I knew exactly how many licks I’d receive.
“One,” I said. That was my usual assessment.
“I think two,” he said. “Now what about the bad language?”
“I don’t think it was that bad,” I said.
“You used a word that was unacceptable.”
“Yes sir.”
“How many licks for that?”
“One.”
“Can we agree on three, total?” he asked. He never whipped me when he was angry, so there was usually a little room for negotiation. Three sounded fair, but I always pushed a little. After all, I was on the receiving end. Why not haggle?
“Two’s more fair,” I said.
“It’s three. Now bend over.”
I swallowed hard, gritted my teeth, turned around, bent over, and grabbed my ankles. He smacked my rear three times with the hickory stick. It stung like hell, but his heart wasn’t in it. I’d received far worse.
“Go to bed, right now,” he said, and I ran to the house.
Chapter 20
Now that Hank had $250 of Samson’s money in his pocket, he was even less enthusiastic about picking cotton. “Where’s Hank?” Pappy asked Mr. Spruill as we took the sacks and began our work on Monday morning. “Sleepin’, I reckon” was the abrupt response, and nothing else was said at that moment.
He arrived in the fields sometime in the middle of the morning. I didn’t know exactly when because I was at the far end of a row of cotton, but soon I heard voices and knew that the Spruills were once again at war.
An hour or so before lunch, the sky began to darken, and a slight breeze came from the west. When the sun disappeared, I stopped picking and studied the clouds. A hundred yards away I saw Pappy do the same thing — hands on hips, straw hat cocked to one side, face frowning upward. The wind grew stronger and the sky darker, and before long the heat was gone. All of our storms came from Jonesboro, which was known as Tornado Alley.
Hail hit first, hard tiny specks the size of pea gravel, and I headed for the tractor. The sky to the southwest was dark blue, almost black, and the low clouds were bearing down on us. The Spruills were moving quickly down their rows, all heading for the trailer. The Mexicans were running toward the barn.
I began to run, too. The hail stung the back of my neck and prompted me to run even faster. The wind was howling through the trees along the river and pushing the cotton stalks to their sides. Lightning cracked somewhere behind me, and I heard one of the Spruills, Bo, probably, give a yell.
“We don’t need to get near the cotton trailer,” Pappy was saying as I arrived. “Not with that lightnin’.”
“Better get to the house,” my father said.
We loaded onto the flatbed trailer, all of us scrambling in a great hurry, and just as Pappy turned the tractor around, the rain hit with a fury. It was cold and sharp and falling sideways in the fierce wind. We were instantly soaked; I wouldn’t have been wetter if I’d jumped in the creek.
The Spruills huddled together with Tally in the center. Just a few feet away, my father clutched me to his chest, as if the wind might take me away. My mother and Gran had left the fields not long before the storm hit.
The rain beat us in waves. It was so thick I could barely see the rows of cotton just a few feet in front of me. “Hurry up, Pappy!” I kept saying. The storm was so loud I couldn’t hear the familiar knock of the tractor engine. Lightning cracked again, this time much closer, so close that my ears hurt. I thought we were going to die.
It took forever to get to the house, but when we did, the rain suddenly stopped. The sky was even darker, black in every direction. “It’s a funnel!” Mr. Spruill said loudly as we were just getting off the trailer. To the west, far beyond the river and high above the tree line, a slim funnel cloud dipped downward. It was light gray, almost white against the black sky, and it grew larger and louder as it made its way very slowly toward the ground. It was several miles away, and because of the distance it didn’t seem too dangerous.
Tornadoes were common in our part of Arkansas, and I’d heard stories about them all of my life. Decades earlier Gran’s father had supposedly survived a horrible twister, one that had run in circles and struck the same small farm more than once. It was a tall tale, one that Gran told without much conviction. Twisters were a way of life, but I’d not seen one until now.
“Kathleen!” my father yelled toward the house. He didn’t want my mother to miss such a spectacle. I glanced at the barn, where the Mexicans were as still and as amazed as we were. A couple of them were pointing.
We watched the funnel in muted fascination, without fear or terror, because it was nowhere near our farm and going away, to the north and east. It moved slowly, as if it were searching for the perfect place to touch down. Its tail was clearly visible above the horizon, way above the land, and it skipped along in midair, dancing at times while it decided where and when to strike. The bulk of the funnel spun tightly, a perfect upside-down cone whirling in a fierce spiral.