Smonk or Widow Town Part 18

Let's take all the children!

No! barked Mrs. Tate from the floor, but with the women closing on the boy, no one heard.

From concealment, Walton saw his chance. He raised the shotgun and fired into the air and the room stilled and every conscious person turned to him, dusted in powder from the ceiling.

Excuse me, he said to the ladies. He sneezed. I'm only dimly aware of what's going on here, but I'll be rescuing this child and the unconscious young woman now. If anybody tries to interfere, I'll be forced to action. (At which point he realized he'd fired his only barrel.) In other words, he said, drop your weapons, ladies.

He sneezed again.

They grumbled until he clicked back the shotgun's hammer in one final "bluff," and at last their guns began to clunk one, another, to the floor.

Thank you, Walton said, for your cooperation.

He glanced at Evavangeline, naked on the sideboard, and saw her fingers flutter. Her eyes opened.

Son, he said to the boy, please help the young woman to her feet.

From the floor, Mrs. Tate hissed, Who are you to interfere in our affairs?

Phail Walton, said he, founder and leader of the Christian Deputies.

Christian! croaked Mrs. Tate. Get him! she said to the bristling widows. Don't let them go!

The women muttered and milled.

Hurry, child, Walton said to the boy.

William R. McKissick Junior grabbed the over & under rifle in one hand and pulled Evavangeline to her feet where she steadied herself on the boy's shoulder like a drunk. They hobbled across the room but paused when they came to where Smonk and McKissick lay, very near one another. For a long moment Walton and his captives watched Evavangeline stare down at the face of Smonk.

She was crying. Pus.h.i.+ng Junior away, she went to her dead daddy where he lay drenched in his own blood. She knelt over him and closed his good eye and ran her fingers into his pockets and found a wad of paper money and several heavy gold coins. She found three pistols and a pair of bra.s.s knuckles. A stick of dynamite. She picked up the gla.s.s eye from the floor and put it in her mouth.

William R. McKissick Junior had knelt, too. He rolled McKissick over and adjusted his father's loin cloth and yanked at the rug until he'd covered him and stood and looked, only his daddy's shoes showing.

Get those, Evavangeline said.

The boy reached down and pulled off the left shoe, the right, and when he did a small package wrapped in brown paper fell out. He took it.

Come on, Evavangeline said, her father's last things gathered to her chest.

The boy didn't even notice her t.i.tties. The Winchester in the crook of his arm, he held the package in one hand and the shoes in the other and followed Evavangeline's dirty shoulders into the hall. Walton, covering the widows, was aware of some of the younger ones' lecherous gazes, and once the girl and boy were outside, he thanked the ladies again and bowed and made his exit.

In the parlor, the women seized their guns and gathered around Mrs. Tate.

Release me, she said.

No, said Mrs. Hobbs. I think we done listened to you long enough.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Hobbs's daughter's neck was itching. Like she had a rash. When she felt the circle of cuts on her throat she began to scream-I been bit! I been bit!-and in a moment other women joined her in a discordant harmony as they discovered their own marks.

That was them, wasn't it? Mrs. Hobbs asked, displaying her ample right bosom with its ring of teethprints around the nipple. Mrs. Tate? Wasn't it? Them was the chosen ones!

Mrs. Tate turned her face to the wall. It's done, she said.

The church! someone yelled. If that was them-!

The children!

The women flung away their guns and shoved each other and stampeded outside, toward the waiting miracle. And indeed the buildings at that end of the street were glowing orange, as if the sun were coming up from the west, at midnight.

Walton had given Evavangeline his s.h.i.+rt to cover her naked flesh and she led him and the boy to where the children were kept. Walton posted William R. McKissick Junior at the window as he roused the sleeping youngsters, thin, listless angels with under-circled eyes. He examined their arms for dog-bites but found none. We're in time, he told Evavangeline but she didn't seem to hear, leaning as she was against the wall.

They coming, the boy said.

Walton crossed the room and peered out to the street where the women were collecting like a "lynch mob."

Little boy, Walton said. What's your name.

William R. McKissick Junior.

William, said the northerner. Can you do something for me? Can you lead these children and this young woman out the back, to safety? Cut through the sugarcane and don't stop. The wind's coming from the north so go that way. He pointed, and then, without waiting for an answer, Walton propelled the lad away.

Good-bye, he told them both, and said to Evavangeline: I regret that we weren't able to chat further; I'd love to have given you my testimony.

She looked at him. It's a dollar.

Walton had turned to the boy. Go.

William R. McKissick Junior nodded, which was the last thing Walton saw as he turned and let himself out through the front door, locking it behind him. Unarmed, he stepped out and faced the mob of women semi-circling the porch.

He raised his hands. Ladies, I'd like to give you all my testimony. He cleared his throat. Excuse me. Have any of you ever heard of the word "bunker"?

Get him, said Mrs. Hobbs, and the widows came forward. Walton closed his eyes, outspread his arms and blocked the door. He would not be moved. He awaited the impact of their weight, being shoved forcefully into the wood, the women swarming him and pus.h.i.+ng him into the air and hoisting him aloft above them and then sucking him down to the floor. He waited, eyes shut tightly, trying to think of an appropriate Verse of Scripture with which to comfort himself. Perhaps lines from the Book of Judges, the scene wherein Samson slew one thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an a.s.s. Walton could picture the statuesque Biblical hero atop a mound of fresh corpses with various jaw-shaped abrasions on their persons. Samson in mid-swing, the bone high in the air, half a dozen opponents frozen in the act of falling.

Yet...Walton opened his eyes. He was unharmed, alone. He looked down the street, where the church was on fire. Ah. Instead of mobbing him, the widows had noticed the burning church and were heading there now, collecting handfuls of dust to hurl at the flames. One stout woman mounted the porch and slammed her shoulder against the door, which fell in, engulfing her in fire which swarmed the eaves and roof and up the steeple, igniting the cross.

Below, women had flocked to the windows and were peering in, and perhaps it was the fire that seemed to quake the redeemed as they burned in their seats. Wailing, the widows clambered over the burning corpse of the stout woman on the porch. They flung themselves into the door and stumbled back out, dresses afire, circling the church as its flames licked the bottom of the sky, windows exploding, the steeple creaking, sinking into itself, toppling. It fell for a long time and splintered into a thousand fires and the trees alongside the building and the oaks lining Main Street ignited one after another like torches and dropped burning cobs and cones and limbs and leaves, the red moon blazing over all, heedless how the fire spat itself building to building along the street, Mrs. Tate in her house on her floor still bound as fire raged in from the porch through the open door. She found that she could roll herself in her sheet and rolled through the stew of the dead bailiff's guts bubbling with heat and rolled past Smonk's great dead face, his head the marble head of some ancient, unearthed idol. She rolled alongside the detonator as her swaddling began to burn and bent her knees and curled into a U and rocked herself upright enough to place her chin on the handle and closed her eyes and plunged it down.

Meanwhile, Walton had descended the steps and stood in the street watching the widows hurl themselves into the burning church. He might have tarried a spell longer had not the building he'd just quit exploded, of all things, and sent him flying. From somewhere a horse was running past and with no thought whatsoever Walton, in midair, twisted his body and landed on his feet alongside the horse and seized its halter and bounced once, twice, thrice in its rhythm and threw his leg over and stabbed his feet into the stirrups. He leaned alongside the horse's neck and retrieved the reins and soon had the steed whoaed and panting.

There, there, big fellow, he said, reaching to scruff between its ears.

He looked back. His plan was to return to Old Texas and see to the others, help Evavangeline find the children's homes; surely no n.o.bler challenge could arise before a man of G.o.d. Perhaps he would ask for the young woman's hand as well.

But as he turned the horse he saw that the burning sugarcane had cast its fire east and west and now closed upon him like a pair of apocalyptic arms, affording him no chance but to heel his mount and flee south. Farewell, he called to the youngsters and the youngsters leading them. I'll try to find you- He was interrupted by a falling tree and without command the horse began to run. Behind them, the stores and houses of Old Texas had exploded one by one from the Tate residence down the street, and when the church blew, the widows left alive were lifted in a basket of hot air and thrown into the darkness of the canefield like dice and left to sit up and gaze in wonder at the burning shreds of sky landing around them. They were deaf. They gaped at the hole where the church had been as sections of their own murdered boys fell soundlessly. The sugarcane began to burn. Mrs. Hobbs cackled and tore down her dressfront and with her fingers hooked into claws she fled the burning town, pulling out her own hair.

Moments later the other women followed Mrs. Hobbs, howling and ripping their clothing. Walton in the meantime reversed directions and nearly collided with the mob of shrieking women; they clawed and snapped at his legs, the khaki of his pants darkened with their saliva and his extra pockets shorn away, until the horse broke free and galloped south.

When Walton saw Loon in the same spot he'd left him he slowed his new mount and called, Come on, deputy, if you want to live.

Loon kept his hands out of sight. Naw. I reckon not.

Loon, Walton said, Oswald. There are times to trust another. This is one of those times. Please, I beg you. Put your faith in me.

Naw, Cap'n, I believe I'll stick to my position here.

The horde of screaming women burst into the field and Walton kicked his horse. Suit yourself.

He rode on.

A moment later the women spotted Loon and changed direction and raged toward him. When the deputy began to point his deadly fingers, no shots answered-not when the naked ladies grew close and closer, not when they pulled him sideways off the horse and fell upon him and began to bite him. Not even when he pointed to his own forehead.

Riding, with Loon's screams muted in the smoke behind him, Walton unpocketed his flask and drank until there was nothing more to drink and pitched the flask into the dark. Whether the cool tears tracking his cheeks and neck were the result of the alcohol, the copious smoke or his own stripped emotions, he was too tired to consider. What he did instead was close his eyes and cling to the horse, it seemed to be flying, and race the fire into the night.

Meanwhile Evavangeline, William R. McKissick Junior and the children had left the house moments before it exploded. They rattled through the sugarcane and headed north, into the wind, the fire cracking like rifles behind them. Soon they forded the shallow Tombigbee, William R. McKissick Junior carrying the littlest girl, and by the time anyone looked back they were in another county and it was beginning to rain. That night they rested in a barn and Evavangeline blew up the new balloon and she and the children batted it to one another until they fell asleep in the hay.

In the morning before the barn's owner stirred Evavangeline emptied the henhouse of its eggs and led the younguns away. Within two days they came upon the town of Suggsville, where the first little stolen boy lived. His weeping parents fed them ham and biscuits and cow's milk and Evavangeline and William R. McKissick Junior would have been heroes in that town had they not collected the other children before first light the following day and left.

In the end it would take seven weeks to get all the children home, Evavangeline rewarding Junior with a handjob upon each child's safe return. Near Christmastime, after they'd seen the last little girl reunited with her parents, William R. McKissick Junior was himself adopted by a wealthy childless couple in a lumber town called Fulton. The house he would live in had indoor plumbing, and there was a big sweet gum tree to climb, right outside the window of his bedroom.

On Christmas morning before anyone else was awake Evavangeline left riding north on a spotted pony she called Little Bit, the season's first crumbles of snow glistening in the animal's mane and in her own eyelashes. She'd not produced a mile's worth of tracks when she turned to see the boy in his new sheepskin overcoat and galoshes. He was running to catch her, his breath trailing like a scarf.

Hey, she said.

Hey, he panted. His cheeks red apples. I needed me one last one. He held up a silver dollar.

The pony looked back over its shoulder. Well h.e.l.l Mary, Evavangeline said. She rolled off and flapped her blanket out over the weeds and lay on her back and scooched down her britches with snow landing all around. We can do better 'n a d.a.m.n handjob, she said. Come here, honey.

Three months later, she feels a thump in her middle. She stops on the sidewalk in Memphis under a striped awning beside a short n.i.g.g.e.r in the doorway sweeping. The n.i.g.g.e.r looks up.

In the coming weeks she finds work in an upscale house of harlotry for men who desire girls in a family way. She is treated well by this cla.s.s of specialist, a cost of forty dollars a night, the house taking half, she the rest plus meals and licker. Her little baby likes shrimp and champagne. He kicks all the time, and hits and rolls, especially when she smokes opium or skunkweed. Sometimes he keeps pounding on her right side and she knows to go right. Or he'll get so hungry he runs in place. His sharp little toes. Right there in her tummy.

A G.o.dd.a.m.n miracle.

And now, after tonight's daddy has gotten his nut and rolled off snoring his beer and farting his steak, she watches clouds out the window and sucks E.O.'s eye in her jaw and cradles her melon of a belly. She has known death and love and danger and Alabama in her long tally of years, and she swears to G.o.d in the sky or the devil in the dirt-whoever bets the highest-that it's her honor to be knocked up with a tiny new Smonk, and if he takes her life when he fights out into the world of light and air, nothing will make her happier. And if little Ned wants to suck on her plump t.i.tties as she closes her eyes, then that too will pleasure her, yall. Infinitely. Which means forever.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I want to thank Beth Ann Fennelly-my wife, best friend and first reader-for her loving work on the Smonk ma.n.u.script; for her advice, criticism, insight and wisdom; and, mainly, for never running screaming from the house. Thanks to my daughter, Claire, whose mishearing of "skunk" gave this book its name, and to my son, Thomas, for joining our family. To my generous, understanding parents, Gerald and Betty Franklin. To my colleagues and students at Ole Miss. To Nat Sobel, more uncle than agent, Judith Weber, and their amazing staff. To Smonk's early readers: Chris Gay, William Gay, Michael Knight, Hardy Jackson, Jack Pendarvis and Steve Whitton. To Kathy Pories. To the Fairhope, Alabama, gang and especially Sonny Brewer and Joe Formich.e.l.la. A raised Bud Light to my pals (there and gone) at City Grocery: John, Whitey, Joe, Chip, Enright and Norm. Thanks to Jim Dees, John T. Edge, Tom Howorth, Walter Neill, Ron Shapiro and Franklin Williams. To Richard and Lisa Howorth, Lyn Roberts, and everyone at Square Books. To Earl Brown who took me back to 1876 and Steve Wallace who told me about Old Texas. Continued thanks to all the folks at William Morrow and HarperCollins, especially Tim Brazier, Kevin Callahan, Lisa Gallagher, Michael Morrison, Michael Morris, Sharyn Rosenblum and Claire Wachtel, my editor. And in memory of the writers Larry Brown and James Whitehead.

Portions of Smonk appeared in Murdaland, 9th Letter, Climbing Mt. Cheaha: Emerging Alabama Writers and Verb: An Audioquarterly, and I thank these editors.

About the Author.

TOM FRANKLIN is the author of Poachers: Stories and h.e.l.l at the Breech. Winner of a 2001 Guggenheim Fellows.h.i.+p, he teaches in the University of Mississippi's MFA program and lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife, the poet Beth Ann Fennelly, and their children, Claire and Thomas.

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ALSO BY TOM FRANKLIN.

h.e.l.l at the Breech.

Poachers: Stories.

end.