‘Well we don’t have to worry ‘bout that now. I thought you wanna come on out an’ celebrate wit’ me an’ Easy. You know it ain’t ev’ryday you get a daughter-in-law an’ maybe some grandkids.’
‘I gotta take care’a my dog...’ Reese said. He turned to go back into the house.
‘Reese!’ Mouse shouted as he jumped to his feet.
The older man stopped. Without turning he said, ‘I don’t take to folks raisin’ they voice t’me out on my farm, an’ I don’t take t’folks comin’ out an’ hurtin’ my dogs. So I guess you better go back to wherever you come from or I’ma go get my gun an’...’
‘I come fo’my part’a Momma’s dowry, Reese,’ Mouse said. ‘I know she had some jewelry an’ some money from her folks when you two got married an’ you leased land wit’ it. I know you got money out here now, an’ I want some for my own weddin’. It’s mines, Reese, an’ I want it.’
The last three words turned Reese around.
I fell back a step while he and Mouse faced off.
‘You ain’t got the right t’say her name, boy. She up ev’ry night worried ‘bout you an’ who knows what you doin’, or where? She worried herself sick an’ then she died an’ who you think brought it on?’ There were tears in Reese’s eyes. ‘She died askin’ fo’you. It broke my heart, an’ where was you? You weren’t nowhere. Nowhere. An’ my girl layin’ in that bed all yellah an’ sick ‘cause she so worried ‘bout a rotten chile like you...’
‘What good it gonna do, huh?’ Mouse shouted. ‘I’s barely a teenager an’ you come after me wit’ sticks an’ fists. What good it gonna do her t’see you beat me?’
‘You was a rotten boy, Raymond, an’ you’s a rotten man. You kilt her an’ now you want my money, but I see you dead fo’ I give up a dime.’
‘I kilt’er? You the one. You the one ravin’ ‘bout how yo’ boy so good an’ how I ain’t even legal. You the one beat on her an’ beat on me which hurt her even more cause my momma was a good woman an’ you is the devil! The devil, you hear?’ Mouse reached in the back of his pants for the second time that day. He pulled out that long-barrelled .41 and blasted that poor shivering dog. Then he shot the other three: crack, crack, crack; like ducks in an arcade. Reese hit the ground thinking that Mouse was gunning for him.
‘I’ma have what’s mines,’ Mouse said as he brought the bead down on Reese.
‘You can kill me an’ you can take my soul but I ain’t gonna give you a drop’a what’s mine!’
‘Raymond!’ I shouted. ‘Let it go, man! You cain’t get nuthin’ like this. Let it go.’
Mouse lifted the barrel a hair and shot over Reese’s head, then he turned to me and said, ‘We better get outta here.’
We went fast down the way we had come.
Half a mile down, Mouse stopped and pulled the baby doll from his jacket. He took out a string and tied it roughly around the doll’s neck and then he hung the doll from a branch so that it dangled down over the centre of the road.
‘He gonna come down here with that shotgun but you know he gonna be stopped by this,’ Mouse said loudly, to himself.
We took so many turns and shortcuts that I was lost. I think Mouse was lost too, because when it started getting dark he said, ‘We cain’t get nowhere’s good t’night, Ease. We better find some shelter.’
Nothing could’ve sounded worse to me. When we were running I’d started coughing and it wouldn’t go away. I was feverish and dizzy and I wanted my bed and my room in Houston more than anything.
‘Ain’t they noplace?’
‘Uh-uh, Ease. Anyway, I want to go to ground. Reese is good at night.’
He left me to rest next to a dead oak and went out looking for shelter. While I sat there, beginning to fade into my fever, I saw a barn owl glide through the low branches. It moved fast and silent and it never hit a twig, it was so sure. I thought to myself that some rabbit was going to die that night, then I started to shake; whether it was from the fear of mortality or chills I didn’t know.
‘There’s a lea some hunter musta used just a ways down, Ease,’ Mouse said when he returned.
‘What if Reese use it?’
‘He ain’t likely to be in no lea t’night. If he go out huntin’ it’a be wide awake.’
We laid side by side in that flat tent of leaves and baling wire. The grippe came full on me.
‘Wh-what you kill them dogs fo’?’
Raymond put his arm around me and held on tight to keep me from shivering. He said, ‘Shhh, Easy, you sick. Git some sleep and in the mo’nin’ you be fine.’
‘I-I-I just wanna know why. Why you kill them dogs?’
I felt like a cranky baby half napping on a Sunday afternoon.
‘I was mad, that’s all, Ease,’ Mouse whispered. ‘Reese talk ‘bout my momma like that an’ I’m like to kill’im.’
‘But them dogs didn’t hurt you.’
‘Go t’sleep now, Easy. Shh.’
I never knew Mouse to be so gentle. He held me all night and kept me warm as much as he could. Who knows? Maybe I would’ve died out there in Pariah if Mouse hadn’t held me to his black heart.
Chapter Seven
When I woke up things seemed better. Dew weighed heavily on the grass and leaves around us. It was bright and early. A jay stood not five feet from us with a grasshopper crumpled in its beak. The jay looked at me and for some reason that made me happy.
I could smell Mouse’s sour breath from over my shoulder; there was a tiny wheeze coming from him. Dead dogs and crazy family were far away for the moment. I felt a cough coming on but I stifled it to stay quiet just a little longer.
‘You ‘wake, Easy?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How you feel?’
I tried to say ‘fine’ but that started me coughing.
When I finally stopped Mouse crawled out of the lea and said, ‘We better get you someplace inside so you can rest. We better git you back t’Jo’s.’
‘Uh-uh. I ain’t goin’ there.’
‘Jo ain’t gonna do nuthin’ when you sick, Easy. And she’s the closest thing to a doctor for twenty miles.’
‘I ain’t goin’ t’Jo’s. No!’
‘You cain’t be comin’ wit’ me, Ease. Reese come up ‘hind me an’ I gotta move, fast.’
‘Why’ont we go on home?’
‘I ain’t finished yet. I made up my mind I’ma git what’s ines outta that man an’ that’s what I’ma do.’
‘He tole you no.’
‘That’s all right. I ain’t hesitatin’ yet. We got some more ground t’cover - me an’ daddyReese.’
‘I ain’t goin’ t’Jo’s.’
‘Okay. I take you over to Miss Dixon’s. She always willin’ t’he’p if she think you know Dom.’
‘Who is she?’ I asked, not trusting Mouse too much anymore.
He laughed a good laugh and said, ‘Don’t worry, Easy, she too old t’be thinkin’ bout love. Anyway, she’s white.’
It was a beautiful day.
We made it down to some railroad tracks and followed them for a few miles. It was one of those sultry southern mornings when all of the sounds of birds and insects are muffled by the heavy air. I was so weak that I couldn’t bring myself to worry about what Mouse was planning; all I wanted was a bed somewhere and some food.
After almost an hour we came to a large field that abutted a smooth dirt road. Across the road was a house. It was a real house with a garden and a fence and all the walls standing straight.
‘That’s Miss Dixon’s place,’ Mouse said. ‘Now you let me do the talkin’, all right?’
‘Uh-huh. But I ain’t gonna stay there if I don’t like it.’ ‘Don’t you worry, even a white man’d like this.’ There was a swing chair out front. The porch was dosed by a lattice covered with forsythia. When we walked up the front stairs Mouse took the lead, but before he could knock on the screen door the inner door opened.
‘Raymond Alexander.’ It was a statement. ‘What you want here?’
Mouse doffed a make-believe hat and said, ‘Miss Dixon, I come out here on a piece of business for Domaque.’