I took a step from the stand of trees. Clifton bowed his head. Reese Corn bellowed. The sun, which wasn’t the least bit concerned with that drama, peeked down through the mist.
I took another step and stopped.
Mouse turned to the basket and shouted, mimicking Reese’s hoarse rage. The basket shook from the internal blows.
I had taken three steps when Mouse started kicking the basket. I felt that if I walked slowly and calmly into that situation I could stop all the hostile activities. I honestly believed that I could calm Mouse down and bring Reese around to reason.
Maybe I could have done all that.
‘Let’im alone!’ Clifton shouted.
The boy thrust out his free hand and grabbed Raymond just when he was in the middle of a kick. The kick went wide, slamming against one of the bamboo latches that secured the lid.
Mouse hit the ground squeezing off a shot that hit the ground not two feet to my left.
The lid to the basket popped off and daddyReese Corn came out like a leaping jack-in-the-box. Blacker than Momma Jo and naked, Reese went at the first target he saw — Clifton.
Clifton.
The only thought in my mind was to save that sour boy’s life. I ran full out with my eyes wide and focused on the men.
Clifton took a step backwards and raised the shotgun by the barrel, like a dub. And then Reese was on him.
The gun seemed to leap into Reese’s hand of its own accord. It twisted like a snake and Reese’s hand was at the trigger.
I yelled.
Clifton did too. Then the blast hit him.
Mouse had made it to his feet but Reese was faster that day.
Reese turned toward his stepson before Clifton hit the ground. Mouse fired but Reese ducked low and rammed Raymond with his shoulder.
Mouse’s second shot went somewhere in the trees.
There was no savouring the moment for daddyReese. Mouse was rolling away on the ground, toward his dropped pistol. Reese was drawing his bead.
Neither one of them heard me coming on.
I had no plan, or dexterity to execute a plan if I had one. I didn’t grab Reese. I didn’t even tackle him. I simply ran into him like a fool running into a brick wall.
I felt the recoil before hearing the shotgun blast.
The air went out of my lungs and the ground came up to meet my face.
‘Easy,’ he said softly. ‘Easy, wake up.’
Mouse was squatting down next to me. Beyond him I could make out a black arm sprawled on the ground.
Mouse pulled me up by my shirt. When I was standing I looked down on Reese. A large part of his left temple was gone. The shotgun lay at his side.
Clifton hadn’t died all at once. He’d been gut-shot. He’d ripped off his shirt and pulled down his pants to try and do something about the wound. He died with both hands trying to push the intestines back into his body.
Mouse’s pistol lay near Clifton’s shoulder.
‘Come on, Easy. We got to get outta here.’ I was light-headed, staggering behind Raymond. Many times I stopped because there was something I had to remember and I couldn’t walk and remember at the same time. Whatever it was I needed to recall was like a reflection in water and every step I took sent ripples across the image. So I’d stop. But before the image came dear Mouse would shake me and say, ‘Come on, Easy, we ain’t got time t’play.’ I remember walking behind him, seeing that he still had that tan rucksack hanging from his shoulder. It looked like it was stuffed with clothes. No more Johnnie Walker.
Mouse brought me in the back way of his aunt’s store. I went to my little room and stretched out on the thin mattress. I dreamed that I was a stone in a field lodged among different kinds of grasses. The growth of the grass made the scrunching sound that a finger makes when it’s pressed across the tight skin of a drum. By midsummer the grass had grown over me and I was in the dark shade of towering blades of green.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Reese Corn was a solitary man in his last years. He didn’t come much to Ethiopia Baptist Church. And those of you who don’t have faith,’ and Reverend Peters looked out over the congregation, ‘might say that he had lost the way of the Lord. But brother Reese didn’t lose his way. He knew death was comin’ an’ on his last Sunday in the world Reese came back to the Lord.’
‘Amen,’ Mouse said. He was standing next to the open coffin, his gloved hands folded before him. He wore a spotless black suit with a black tie and an ivory-white shirt. I never did know where he found that outfit.
‘Yes, he came to the Lord at the last moment, but you know that’s enough for Jesus.’ He surveyed us again. ‘All Jesus needs is for you to look his way an’ he’s gonna save your soul. That’s why we’re here; to be saved. All’a you here today are alive but you’re gonna have to face it too. Yes you are. Every one of you in this room is going to have his moment of reckoning and her moment of reckoning and in that moment you will have to take Jesus to your heart, or you will perish.’
