The Journey of Little Charlie Read online

  “Fifty dollars? Other than Mr. Tanner, I don’t even know no one that’s ever had fifty dollars at one time, sir. My hand to Jesus.”

  The cap’n closed his eyes for a couple seconds, opened ’em, then smiled. Leastways, I think it was a smile; the cap’n’s moustache was growed so wild that it hung o’er his lips like thick Spanish moss in a swamp. But a crinkling come to his eyes, and with most folks, that’s a sign that they’s smiling.

  “You know what, Miss Bobo, I gots a good sense ’bout these things and I can see you’s being truthful. I believe you when you say Big Charlie never gave y’all no money.”

  Me and Ma both untensed ourselves.

  But done it too soon.

  The cap’n said, “Yes, ma’am, I sure ’nough think that’s the truth.

  “But that ain’t got one chicken-scratching thing to do with my fifty dollars. From what I can tell, Big Charlie ain’t got no plans on paying it back, so as his heirs, it ain’t nothing but common sense that that job’s fell to y’all.”

  “Cap’n Buck, how—”

  He helt up his hand.

  “Now, ain’t nothing I’d rather do more’n chat the hours away with y’all; we could tell stories ’bout Big Charlie Bobo for days, but I’m pressed for time. Either you or that freak-show-size boy of yourn go get my money.”

  He pulled a pocket watch out his jacket, tapped it, and said, “Time’s a-wasting.”

  “But, sir, you can’t be serious. Look at us, we ain’t got nothing. We’s barely eating.”

  “Big Charlie don’t own this land no more, do he?”

  “No, sir, not for going on six years. Things got squeezish on us, so he sold it to Mr. Tanner’s boy; we jus’ sharecropping now.”

  The cap’n walked to the door and called o’er his shoulder, “I got to ride down to Orangeburg District and see if Scooch Stinson can come ’long north with me. I’ll be back first thing tomorrow. So, for the next twenty-four hours, let’s all set to figgering out how y’all’s gonna come up with my money.”

  Ma was sobbing. “But, sir, there jus’ ain’t …”

  But Cap’n Buck was gone.

  Me and Ma didn’t even have to say nothing to each other.

  We was of one mind.

  The only thing I was worried ’bout was Stanky being out on her morning run through the woods.

  I hoped she’d get back afore we left.

  We give the cap’n a hour to make sure he wasn’t gonna double back, then I hitched Spangler to the wagon and pult it from behind the shed. We started loading up our goods.

  Truth tolt, it was me who started loading up our goods. Ma wasn’t much help at all. She was so scairt of the cap’n that she was jumping at every owl hoot and near tackling me whenever something rustled ’gainst a branch in the woods out back. I kept hoping it would be Stanky making one ’em rustles, but she never showed.

  To give Ma a little com-fitting, I went to the shed and reached under the floorboards to get Pap’s pistol. I put the last six shells from the box in it.

  I made Ma set on the buckboard seat and tolt her to keep a eye out with the pistol in her lap.

  “Jus’ make sure you don’t shoot Stanky.”

  It’s a stretch to call where we lives a cabin. Most folk that know us calls it the Bobo shack, so I never would’ve thought we had much in it. But once I finished packing our few pieces of furniture and our clothes and Pap’s tools from the shed and the almost finished cabinet of Mr. Dalton’s, the small buckboard was so chock-full that things was hanging o’er the sides.

  Daybreak was still probably a hour away when I finally got everything tied proper to the wagon. I clumb up and sat next to Ma.

  I called and whistled one last time for Stanky.

  Ma spit o’er the side and said, “Good riddance. This place wasn’t nothing but trouble from day one. Where we gonna go, Charlie?”

  I said, “First we’s got to go east to Sumter District, then we’ll go north through Kershaw. Cap’n Buck said he was heading to Orangeburg District, which ain’t but fifteen miles south of here. I don’t wanna go di-rect north in case he come after us. It’d be something turrible if we was to run into him on the road.”

  Ma’s eyes was wild. “Charlie, you listen to me and you listen good. If you ever see that man again, I don’t care if it five year from now, you gotta swear you’ll wait your chance and empty this pistol on him.

  “It don’t matter if you shoots him from behind, you gotta do it. He was right, you know, your pa’s dying that way is a sign that the world’s coming to a end. And that man would know too; he’s the devil’s messenger.

  “I wouldn’t let your pa tell you ’bout the things the cap’n done to Mr. Tanner’s slaves, but believe me, that man ain’t human.

  “I ain’t one to think darkies should be getting no special treatment, things is too soft on ’em as is. I heard most of ’em lives better than good hardworking white folk. But what your pa tolt me the cap’n done to chirren to get back at they ma and pa sets me shivering jus’ thinking ’bout it.

  “Cat-hauling a two-year-old ’cause her ma skipped off the plantation for a couple hour? I don’t know how low someone got to be sunk to think up doing something that evil.

  “Whatever happen, we can’t let him get holt of us. Promise me you …”

  There time goes again, being a trickster and having things that was happening reg’lar pace slow down jus’ ’nough so’s I was gonna be forced to watch every turrible drawed-out second.

  I ain’t sure if it was the way Ma’s face twisted so’s she had the same look that Grandma did the day she died, or if the highness of her shriek was what made me draw up and cringe.

  She fumbled in her lap and come up gripping the pistol with both hands. She couldn’t even wait to get it all the way unwrapped from the curtains of George Washington’s cousin.

  The first explosion had me ducking and covering my head.

  I looked o’er my shoulder to see what had scairt Ma so bad.

  Sure ’nough, there, sitting astride his horse not ten yards from us, was Cap’n Buck, his eyes crinkling up in a horrible smile!

  My and his eyes both got pult back to Ma and the pistol; it looked five times bigger in her hands than it did when Pap helt it. Ma’s first shot had blowed a hole in the piece of curtain and one of the gold tassels had busted out afire.

  The second shot belched out the barrel with a ball of sparks and a flame that lit up the front of the wagon. It was a good thing Ma was gripping on to it with both hands; the recoil sent the gun jumping o’er her head.

  The third and fourth shots happened so quick one after the ’nother that Ma didn’t have no chance to level the gun at the cap’n. Two bullets screamed off into the early morning sky.

  Pap must not’ve give Ma the same shooting lessons he give me. Or maybe he did and she forgot ’em. She was doing everything he’d said not to. She was taking raggedy fast-fast breaths and ’stead of thinking ’bout where each shot was aimed, she quit thinking ’bout anything but getting as many of them bullets out that pistol quick as she could.

  The fifth shot whizzed by me, then thumped into a tree di-rect behind the cap’n.

  The sixth shot grazed my pants leg gentle as a kitten rubbing itself ’gainst my shin.

  When Ma finally rasseled the curtain most the way off and got the gun level, it was too late. She was plumb outta bullets and the click-click-click of the dry-firing pistol echoed ’gainst the trees ’round the cabin. Them turrible clicks sounded just as loud to me as the six rounds she’d fired.

  Shooting that pistol wore Ma right out; when she brung it down she looked more beat than she would working the fields from sunup to sundown on a hot July day.

  Me, Ma, and Cap’n Buck sat there froze.

  I’d swear we helt on to that pose for a hour. The cap’n was the first to say something.

  “My, my, my,” he chuckled. “If the way the Bobos traditionally say good morning to a visitor is by firing six shots at him,
I’m letting one and all know, this here’s my last time a-calling!

  “And look, y’all never said nothing ’bout going off. Why, if I’d-a knowed, I would’ve stayed here and helped pack the wagon.”

  It’s hard to know what to say to someone right after your ma’s took six shots at him from point-blank range. After that, no ’mount of ’pologizing is gonna get took to heart, so I figgered it’d be best to change the subject.

  I said, “No, sir, that’s kind of you, but we don’t need no help. We’s heading o’er to Auntie May-May’s jus’ up the road for a week or two to try and get Ma better. She been feeling puny lately and—”

  The cap’n chuckled and said, “You want to know why I’m so good at my job, big man?”

  Them last two words sounded as though he was cussing me.

  “You ever heard of having something called the sixth sense?”

  I stared at him.

  “Well, I’ve been blessed with what’s knowed as the seventh sense. I gets these inklings when someone’s plotting ’gainst me, this kind of itching in my skin when plans is getting laid to do me or mine wrong.

  “And I gotta tell you, boy, the minute I left you and your ma, my skin took to creeping and crawling like I’d pitched tent on a nest of ants! I tried fighting the feeling and says to myself, ‘Naw, Cap, them Bobos is good folks, they ain’t up to nothing.’

  “And I ain’t got no problem unna-standing how losing your husband and pa so tragic might get y’all feeling a bit unsociable, but six shots to the face? Maybe it’s jus’ me, but that do seem to go right past being unfriendly; that go all the way to being downright hos-tile.

  “Why, I’m getting the feeling y’all ain’t glad to see the ol’ cap’n. Please tell me I’m wrong.”

  I’d seent this afore. I’d seent this when a barn cat gets holt of a mouse and bites something on it hard ’nough that the mouse can’t run proper no more. And all that happens for the next hour, or however long the cat’s having fun, is the mouse gets batted ’round and bit at and chawed on and licked and swallowed and spit back out till this pitiful look come to its eyes and it’s so scairt and wore out that its heart leap right out its chest.

  Can’t be no worst way to die.

  I wasn’t ’bout to play this game with the cap’n.

  He said, “I decided to lay o’er there till the itching passed. And since I jus’ got off the road, I couldn’t help myself. I falls fast to sleep. And it’s a good thing for both of us I did; I woke up jus’ in time to help y’all on your journey.”

  His voice changed and he said to Ma, “Gal, do you got any idea the pickle you done put us all in? What’s this gonna do to my rep-a-tation once folks fount out what you jus’ done?

  “I spent all these years getting these hicks and darkies to know me real good and to see real clear where the lines is drawed. I keeps things simple. When word of this gets out, it ain’t gonna do nothing but serve to confuse ’em.

  “I can see them yokels debating with one the ’nother ’bout what was the ’mount of shots they could take at the ol’ cap’n without suffering no repa-cussions.

  “They’ll be scratching their heads and saying nonsense such as, ‘Is it OK to take seven shots at him or is the limit six?’

  “Or they’ll whisper to one another, ‘Mebbe the ol’ cap’n won’t mind if we was to empty two pistols on him, he’s turnt into being a right reasonable man.’

  “And imagine how befuddled them darkies is gonna be when it come to using a double-barrel shotgun. They gonna have the worstest of times trying to figger if they’s allowed to reload three times or six.

  “Why, I’d get exhausted and be a nervous wreck dodging bullets from sunup to sundown. And you tell me, how many nervous, jumpy men you got respect for?

  “Plus”—he wiped away at a pretend tear—“I gotta say, you gone and hurt my feelings, Miss Bobo.

  “How’s I s’pose to let you live after you done sullied my rep-a-tation so?”

  Ma didn’t know she was part of a cat-and-mouse show; she was happy to play ’long. It was right pitiful the way she set to begging.

  “Oh, please, Mr. Cap’n Buck, sir. I ain’t gonna breathe a word ’bout none of this, and neither will Charlie. I swear, sir. Tell him. Tell the man you won’t say nothing. Charlie Bobo! Wipe that look off your face and tell him!”

  I wish Ma would jus’ close her mouth. The sooner she was quiet, the sooner this toying with us would be o’er.

  “How foolish I look, gal? You might not want to say nothing, but it’s been my ’sperience that words has a way of spouting out of stupid folk the same way water spouts out a spring, it jus’ happen. My rep-a-tation saves me a whole lot of trouble and grief and you gone and kicked a hole in it that I ain’t got no choice but to plug up.”

  “I swear, Cap’n Buck, I swear we won’t say nothing. Please give us a chance.”

  The cap’n wasn’t through toying with Ma. “Afore I bring this to a end, Miss Bobo, why don’t you tell me what y’all’s heard ’bout me.”

  Ma was fumbling ’round, trying to think of what answer he wanted to hear.

  She said, “All I heard, Cap’n Buck, is you’s a great and powerful man, sir. They all say you’s the real reason Mr. Tanner’s rich as he is.”

  “Go on.”

  I was sick of this game.

  I yelled at him, “They all say you’s the sickest, most vile piece of garbage on this earth. They say your ma was a skunk and your pa was a rat. They say there’s a special spot in the bad place a-waiting the day you gets what you deserves. That’s what they say, you stanking piece of human filth.”

  Ma throwed herself in the dirt off the wagon, moaning, ’lowing Pap’s pistol to fall into the dust.

  I didn’t care. Her taking ’em six shots at him and missing was the end of the road for the two of us. I could see the direction this whole thing was headed for and knowed, begging or not, it wasn’t gonna be but a minute or two afore the cap’n got tired of toying with us. I knowed in my heart that Little Charlie Bobo and Suzie Bobo was gonna be the next names on the list of folks he’d sent to the graveyard.

  We was already dead and I wasn’t gonna spend my last minutes on earth begging no worm from the bottom of a outhouse for my life.

  My pap never would’ve and neither would I.

  The cap’n needed to do what he needed to do and get it o’er with.

  He smiled and said, “You right, boy. That’s ’zactly what they be saying ’bout me, and ooh, Your Honor, I’m guilty of every charge!”

  I couldn’t take no more. Something turrible was ’bout to happen to Ma, but that didn’t mean I had to be ’round to see it.

  I jumped off the wagon and rushed the cap’n’s horse with nothing but a balled-up fist and, ’shamed as it make me, tears running down my face.

  With one quick move a six-shooter was in his hand.

  He knowed what I was thinking. ’Stead of plugging me, he draws a bead on Ma, who was worming ’round in the dirt, still begging and crying.

  “You ever seent what someone who been gutshot go through ’fore they die? Take one more step and your ma will show how it’s done.”

  I didn’t want to, but I froze.

  He tolt Ma, “The only reason I ain’t put you down is ’cause if I was to give you your jus’ deserts, this boy would hate me so much that he wouldn’t be no good to me.

  “I likes what I jus’ seent from him. The boy got heart; I’m in a bad pinch and it seem the good Lord done answered my prayers and sent your boy to fulfill my needs. Besides, time ain’t on my side. So I’m gonna be a good businessman and a good Christian and forgive your transgressions and hope y’all’ll forgive mine.

  “Here’s what’s ’bout to happen. Woman, you gonna run on down to the Foster place and tell Tom I needs him to bring a horse to hitch to this here wagon. Then he’s to pull it o’er to barn number three on the Tanner north sixty. You unna-stand me?”

  Ma was trembling something fierce, but she said,
“Yes, sir, oh, thank you, sir, you’s the saint folks say you is. It was Jesus hisself what was protecting you from them bullets! Hallelujah!”

  The cap’n said, “Is you paying ’tention, gal? What barn do I want him to take my wagon to?”

  “Barn number three on the Tanner north sixty, sir.”

  “Y’all’s lost possession of the wagon and everything in it. That’s the first payment on your debt.”

  He turned to me.

  “Ain’t that horse from Joe Sell’s mare?”

  I didn’t say nothing.

  Ma piped in. “Yes, sir! Big Charlie bought Spangler back when we was flush, paid near a hunnert dollars for him. Take him! He’s a great one!”

  “That’s what I remembered, sired by …”

  Ma said, “He was sired by Grand Sha-vois!”

  The cap’n said, “He’ll do.”

  He turned to me. “You gonna unhitch that horse and saddle him up. I ain’t got time to see if Scooch Stinson can come north, and since the Bobo I already paid went and kilt his fool self, you’s vola-teering to take his place.”

  He didn’t have no call at all to say Pap was a fool. None.

  “You’s bigger than most full-growed men. If you keep your hat pulled low and your mouth shut, all I really need is someone to bluff folks and gimme another set of eyes to make sure don’t nothing go wrong behind my back.”

  He said to Ma, “Me and your boy gonna be back in three, four weeks, a month and a half at the most.”

  I said, “A month and a half? But I can’t leave the crops, it’s jus’ ’bout time for us to—”

  The cap’n helt up his hand. “You got bigger fish to fry now; besides, the sheriff was coming out here next week to kick y’all off the land anyhow. We figgered with Big Charlie gone, wasn’t no way y’all could keep it up. We’ll send some darkies o’er to bring y’all’s crops in.

  “You and me gonna run us down some thieves. Ten years ago, they stole jus’ ’bout four thousand dollars from Mr. Tanner. It took that long for word to get back where they’s at.