I thought for a second Pa was going into the house, but he didn’t. His legs seemed to give out and he sat down again, pulling me down too and placing his arm around my shoulders hard. When Pa sat down, the man shut his eyes and turned his head away, then opened the gate.
He stumbled into the lot and fell, but crawled up again and finally reached the wagon. He hung on the wagon and turned to look at the woods. His black face fell over sideways as he listened, and I could see that he was crying. As the baying of the hounds came louder and louder, he pulled up and over the side of the wagon and burrowed down in the loose hay.
When my scared eyes came back to Pa, I could see his face was bunched and hard, and there was a muscle thumping in the side of his neck. His eyes were sad and faraway, looking through the wagon and barn and clear to the river.
We both jumped and turned to the road again when the first bloodhound came through the trees. He was big and ugly, with dripping jaws and red eyes that looked mean. There was a short piece of chain fastened to his collar and he was pulling a skinny little man along behind him. The man was tired and acted meaner than the dog as he jerked hard on the chain to slow the dog down.
Another hound and chain and man came through the trees on the heels of the first. They looked about like the first two, except the second man was having more trouble holding his dog. They both managed to haul the hounds down into the dirt of the road as they reached it, and there waited and rested, staring across the road at us.
Behind them five men came out of the woods spread out in a line and about ten yards apart. They stared at the two men and their dogs in the road, and then at Pa and me sitting on our front step. I recognized three of them as farmers, and one as the blacksmith who worked in a shed next the general store. The other man leading them was the storeowner.
The storeowner glared at Pa and me for a long minute, and I could feel Pa’s hand tighten on my shoulder to stop my trembling. All the men had shotguns ready in their hands as they went over to where the dogs were struggling in the dust on their chains. The men stood there whispering and looking at the house and the barn. Finally, the store-owner said something in a low voice to the two hound men, and they started again, with the hounds scrambling to the gate.
Both bloodhounds clawed hard through the gate, barely stopping at the dark wet spot in the dirt. They pulled harder as they came to the wagon, and low, rumbling moans slobbered from their dripping jaws. When the dogs reached the wagon, both of them tried to climb up the side and were jerked back. Their deep bellowing cries were making such a racket now that it was hard to hear anything.
One of the farmers laid his gun on the ground and picked up the pitchfork that I’d dropped by the wagon. He stepped up on one of the wheels and plunged the fork into the hay, up and down as hard as he could. After stabbing three or four times, he hit something and jumped off the wheel, leaving the pitchfork standing straight and quivering in the wagon. The black man hidden in the hay jumped up, throwing the hay in every direction, with the fork stuck right through his middle.
He stood there with his long arms stretched to the sky, paying no attention to the men and the guns pointed at him. His streaked bloody face reached for the heavens too, and I stared at the warm, rosy glow that bathed it. For just a tiny beat of time there was a fearsome quiet. Even the snarling dogs were still.
“Oh, Lord...” the black man called, and then the shotguns drowned him out. The heavy blasts shook Pa and me where we sat on the steps, their ugly red voices cutting through the deep purple of the twilight. Pa pulled my head down on his chest, but my eyes stayed on the black man swaying in the wagon. I saw one of the stretching hands disappear and a shredded stub take its place. The shining, reaching face turned into a red mush, and two big holes spilled out on his straining body. Then the dead man fell out of the wagon into the dirt of the lot, and it was quiet again.
The men watched as the dirt around the body got darker and wetter, then they turned quickly to the gate. When they all had gone through, one of them very carefully closed and latched it. Pulling the hounds with them, they crossed the dirt road, with never a look at Pa and me, and entered the woods again.
When they were gone at last, I was sobbing in big hard gulps as I turned to look at Pa. He was still staring toward the wagon, and I’d never seen a face grabbed with so much pain. It was all there for me to see and understand, and I sat there and was sick with the understanding.
I don’t know why, but after awhile I had sort of a proud feeling when I looked at Pa, and then it didn’t hurt so bad to go out in the dirt of the lot to help him pick up the body of my brother.
For a Friend
by Bob McKnight
No smart man plays the horses when he needs money. But Joe had a special system worked out...
Joe Rossotti’s luck ran out the day he put five hundred fish on Arab Dancer. It was “to win” and it was in the fifth at Jamaica. His pal Tony booked the bet.
“It’s past post time,” Tony said, “but for a friend I’ll book it.”
“Sure,” Joe said. “Sure, Tony.”
Less than thirty seconds later, when Tony posted the results, Joe was stunned to find Arab Dancer had run second in a photo finish. Carmen had said he was a cinch to win.
He looked at Tony, still not quite believing a truth that had been proving itself to him for weeks. Hell, you don’t get to suspect a lifetime pal overnight, or the girl you want, either.
Still, Tony didn’t believe in giving a sucker an even break, and he’d been a sharp operator ever since they were kids. Tony had always had money in his pocket even when they were in grade school.
Now Tony was the neighborhood bigshot, bigger than Lew Kronig, the loan shark, one of the six-for-five boys that made a fine art out of collection. They’d all three been kids together, but kids grew up fast in the neighborhood. Joe was the honest one, by neighborhood standards.
Joe began to think of the day he’d propositioned Carmen. She hadn’t rejected it. She’d made a counter-proposition.
“See me when you got at least a thousand, Joe,” she’d said. “You’ll need that much if we’re going to have ourselves a time.”
All he could see was the full ripeness of her lovely body, the earthy passion that was there for the guy who could afford it.
Joe wasn’t a fast thinker like Tony and Lew, but he didn’t have to have it spelled out for him that a lush beauty like Carmen wouldn’t wait. He couldn’t wait, either.
“What am I supposed to do, make with a stick-up or something?” he said.
Her big black eyes sparkled.
“You got five C’s,” she said. “You heard of horses, haven’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said, “but you’ve got to be on the inside.”
She put her hands on her well rounded hips, drew her shoulders back to emphasize her richly endowed equipment. He knew then he was going to invest his dough on a horse, any horse she wanted to suggest.
“I hear things,” she said. “Maybe there’ll be something going tomorrow. Meet me in front of Tony’s.”
“Tony’s my friend.”
Carmen’s temper blazed.
“If you change your mind, meet me like I said.”
She had turned away from him then, swinging her hips, and as he watched he knew he’d be in front of Tony’s.