Blood on the Forge Page 3

  “Smoke makin’ me light in the head. My stomach growlin’. Guess that mean I got fast business in some white man’s smokehouse.” Chinatown snuffed his smoke. He got to his feet, cleaning his hands by spitting on them and wiping them on his overalls.

  “She got on a black skirt,” Melody dreamed. “She black, too, so’s you can’t see her legs when she shackle her skirt to the floors o’ the earth.”

  “Keep the kettle bilin’, Hattie,” said Chinatown. “Bilin’ water for meat or for buckshots.”

  Melody began to sway.

  “At night the hills ain’t red no more. There ain’t no crab-apple trees squat in the hills, no more land to hoe in the red-hot sun—white the same as black. . . . Where the mule gone at? He only a voice in the pature land. . . .”

  Of a sudden he became conscious of what he was doing. He grabbed for the guitar. “Listen, China; listen, Hattie—listen what I’m doin’.” He went on lightly: “Now the chigger ain’t nothin’ but bite. All the crickets is is a big chirp in the grass. Night bird call out the deathwatch. . . . Night-flyers is glow buckles on the garters of old creepin’ night. The mosquitoes is her swanp-fever sting. . . . But it don’t last long, ’cause she say, ‘Git along,’ an’ be nothin’, ’cause black ain’t nothin’, an’ I is black. . . .”

  “Hallo, hallo . . .” It came like an echo lost in the hills beyond Vagermound.

  Hattie was peering into the night, listening.

  “Hallo, hallo . . .” the echo answered itself.

  “It’s Big Mat,” she cried.

  “Well, git the kettle bilin’, woman,” cried Chinatown. “He ain’t holler lessen he got somethin’ in a sack.”

  “Nigger, nigger never die.

  Black face and shiny eye,

  Kinky hair and pigeon toe—

  That the way the nigger go. . . .”

  Because he was blacker than his half brothers the white share croppers’ kids had sung that little chant at him. They had said that Big Mat’s father must have been a lump of charcoal. And Big Mat had learned to draw to a safe distance within himself everything that could be hurt. The years had given him a shell. But within that tight casure his emotions were under great pressure. Sometimes they broke through, and he filled with red madness—like a boar at mating—hog wild. Few folks had seen him like that. To almost everybody but his close kin he was a stupid, unfeeling giant, a good man to butcher hogs and veal cattle. Melody alone knew him completely. Melody, from his dream world, could read the wounds in Big Mat’s eyes.

  Now seven carcasses glistened on the sacks at Big Mat’s feet. Flies struggled in the sticky blood that oozed from the box of entrails. He threw the chain around the hind leg of the last hog. Passing the free end of the chain over the low branch of a tree, he began to hoist the struggling, squealing animal off the ground. Out of the corners of his eyes he saw Mr Johnston and the riding boss. Mr Johnston had always been a landowner, but the riding boss had been a poor white share cropper. Big Mat remembered him as a little ragged boy singing the hated chant. The two men stood in the shade of the barn, mixing their talk and spit. That talk was about him. He could see it in their little gestures. So he bent closer to the chain, lifting the hog in easy jerks. When the hog was well off the ground Mat fastened the chain to a stake and reached down into the box of guts for his knife.

  “Oh, Mat,” called Mr Johnston.

  “Yessuh?” Mat waited.

  Mr Johnston came toward him.

  “This here’s the last hog, ain’t it?”

  “This the brood sow, suh.”

  “Well, I want to catch her blood.”

  Mat went and got a bucket and set it under the hanging animal.

  “Figger to make some blood sausages,” said Mr Johnston. “Damn good eatin’ when they made right.”

  Mr Johnston stood watching while Big Mat wiped the knife across the hog’s teats. The animal had grown quiet. Its little eyes sucked back out of sight. The snout dripped a rope of saliva halfway to the ground. Big Mat touched the hog’s neck tentatively with the point of the knife. The animal quivered. The shining rope broke and made a bubble on the ground.

  “Mr Johnston.”

  “What it is, Mat?”

  “This here the last hog, and the sun almost down. I was jest wonderin’—”

  “Say what’s on your mind, boy,” said Mr Johnston.

  “My folks is waitin’—”

  “For what?”

  “For me, Mr Johnston. They hungry. . . .”

  “Go on.”

  “If I could jest scald this one and leave the butcherin’ until tomorrow—take somethin’ home to my folks . . .”

  Mr Johnston spat his quid into the box of entrails.

  “Well, that there’s a good idee, Mat. What you figger on takin’ home?”

  “Why, anythin’ you gives me, suh.” Mat played the knife over the sow’s throat. The animal held its breath and then gagged. Saliva ran like unraveling silk.

  “What makes you think I’m going to give you anythin’, Mat?”

  Big Mat did not answer.

  Mr Johnston said, “It ain’t my fault your folks ain’t got nothin’ to eat.”

  The knife point found a spot on the hog’s neck.

  “I figure this here labor can jest go on what you owe me for my mule.”

  The blade slid out of sight. The haft socked against the bristled neck. A quick wiggle of the knife found the great blood vessel. Big Mat drew the blade. Dark blood gushed in its wake. Mr Johnston looked admiringly.

  “You know the needs of a knife, Mat,” he said.

  Big Mat stood watching the hog bleed. He shifted the bucket a trifle with his toe.

  “Mr Johnston.”

  “Yes, Mat?”

  “How we goin’ to make a crop this year? We already late on plowin’.”

  Mr Johnston grinned. “Well, Mat, I figger on you all makin’ a good crop with corn and molasses cane.”

  “We got to have a mule, suh.”

  Mr Johnston’s eyes grew small and sharp. “Looka here, I contract with you for a crop. It ain’t my business how you make it. Them hills has always growed a crop and they’ll grow one this season if you folks have to scratch it outen the bare rocks.”

  So Big Mat told him what he already knew about the land: “It ain’t jest the mule, suh. It’s everythin’. Wind and rain comin’ outen the heavens ever’ season, takin’ the good dirt down to the bottoms. Last season over the big hill the plow don’t go six inches in the dirt afore it strike hard rock. Stuff jest don’t come up like it use to. Us’ll have a hard time makin’ it on our share, mule or no—a hard time. . . .”

  Mr Johnston caught Big Mat with his eyes. He came forward. Big Mat looked doggedly into the hard eyes. For a long second they hung on the edge of violence.

  Mr Johnston said, “You ain’t kickin’, are you, Mat?”

  Big Mat’s eyes dropped to the bloody entrails. He presented a dull, stupid exterior.

  “Nosuh, I ain’t kickin’.”

  Mr Johnston smiled and drew out a plug. He bit a chaw and settled it in his cheek to soften.

  “Mat,” he said, “you know I don’t have nothin’ but niggers work my land. You know why?”

  “Nosuh.”

  “Well, they’s three reasons: niggers ain’t bothered with the itch; they knows how to make it the best way they kin and they don’t kick none.”

  The hog suddenly started its final death struggles. It threshed about on the chain, throwing blood in a wide circle. Mr Johnston jumped back. Big Mat grabbed hold of the animal’s ears and held the big body steady.

  “They don’t jump till they ’most dead,” said Big Mat.

  Mr Johnston laughed. “What I say just past your understandin’, Mat—slips off your head like water offen a duck’s back.”

  “Yessuh.”

  “You a good boy though. What I really come over here for is to tell you I’m goin’ to let you have a mule tomorrow.”

  “Yessuh.
” Big Mat’s outward self did not change, but his heart jumped. A mule was life.

  “An’ about what’s on the book against you—you send them brothers of yourn over here. They can work some of it off. Give them fifty cents a week to boot. That’ll keep you goin’.”

  “Yessuh.”

  “You kin take along a bag of them guts when you go. Throw the rest of them back to the other hogs.”

  Mr Johnston started toward the house. He turned. “Oh, Mat, my ridin’ boss tells me there some jacklegs around, lyin’ to the niggers about how much work they is up North. Jest you remember how I treat you and don’t be took in by no lies.”

  It was dark when Big Mat picked up his greasy sack and started for home. The moon would not be up yet, but he knew the rolling hills by night. His feet would find the road. Deep inside him was his familiar hatred of the white boss, but the thought of a mule was hot, like elderberry wine. Against the dark sky the darker crab-apple trees kept pace with him as he walked. When he reached the edge of Vagermound Common he threw back his head and gave a long “Hallo . . . hallo . . .”

  “We seen you comin’ way yonder,” said Chinatown. “The pig taller was shinin’ green all over your face.”

  Big Mat grunted and lowered the sack six and a half feet to the floor. There was a squoosh and smell that made Chinatown’s mouth water.

  “Chitterlin’s! Man and sweet Jesus!” cried Chinatown. He scraped a handful of the white fat off of the outside of the sack, cramming the white stuff into his mouth.

  Hattie hefted the load.

  “How many of them ailin’ hogs was it?”

  “Eight and a brood sow,” grunted Big Mat.

  “Eight and a brood sow, and all you git is a little sack o’ entrails!” she exploded. “Not nary a head?”

  “Claim I owe him the labor.”

  “What for he claim that?”

  “Labor go ag’inst what he got us on the books for.”

  “One sack of chitterlin’s better’n none at all.” Chinatown grinned. “Git them cleaned and biled afore we talk about the rest.”

  “What he do with the other eight entrails?” asked Hattie.

  “Git on, woman, afore I eats raw hog guts,” said Chinatown. He grabbed up the sack and emptied it into a bucket.

  “What he do with the rest?” insisted Hattie.

  “Do it matter?” Melody told her.

  “He goin’ to feed the other guts to the well hogs,” said Big Mat.

  Chinatown laughed and clucked his gold tooth.

  “He can’t git nowhere, feedin’ his hogs to his hogs.”

  “Jest the guts,” droned Mat.

  Chinatown laughed again.

  They all helped to prepare the chitterlings for the pot, splitting some of them down the middle, turning others inside out, squeezing the still-warm mess onto the sack. Then some of the fat had to be scraped off. Hattie scolded as she scraped.

  “You should of seen Mr Johnston’s wife. She ain’t so much of a chigger like him. She give you a hog head and some black-eyed peas to go ’long with it even.”

  “Keep shut, Hattie,” said Melody. “He got more sense than to talk to a white lady—don’t care who she is.”

  “It’s dangerous,” agreed Chinatown. “ ’Member young Charley from over in the next county got lynched jest ’cause he stumble into one in the broad daylight. She scream.”

  “I stumble anywhere I feels like it,” declared Hattie.

  “You is a colored woman. White man ain’t gonna do much to a colored woman in daylight. He gonna do somethin’ to her at night,” said Chinatown.

  “I kills anybody I catch creepin’ round my back door,” grunted Big Mat.

  “Glad I got a he-man,” sang Hattie.

  “Anybody I catches creepin’,” repeated Mat.

  “I sure got me a man,” chanted Hattie.

  “Melody and me was in town after the big rains last,” said Chinatown, “when who come walkin’ along but old Mrs Johnston. The plank walk so narrow we have to jump out in the mud to keep from brushin’ her.”

  “Huh!” grunted Big Mat.

  “Wasn’t no use in takin’ a chance,” said Melody.

  “Huh!” he grunted.

  “My man,” chanted Hattie.

  “Maybe he’d of grabbed her by the arm.” Chinatown laughed. “Maybe he’d of grabbed her by the arm and say, ‘Goin’ my way, Mrs Johnston? I’m Big Mat, who make crop for your husband.’ ”

  “China, you reckon any lady who sleep with a pole-cat like Mr Johnston is white underneath her clothes?”

  “Can’t say. Ain’t never looked underneath her clothes.” He laughed.

  Big Mat looked from behind heavy brows.

  “Shut that filthy talk,” he growled.

  Chinatown winked at Melody.

  “He and Mr Johnston is pals now.”

  “He goin’ to let us have another mule,” announced Big Mat.

  “Lawd today!” gasped Hattie.

  A quick glance passed between the men. No words were big enough to give their thoughts meaning.

  “He goin’ to work China and Melody half a day in his own fields to lessen what on the book against us— give ’em fifty cents a week to boot.”

  Here was something small enough for talk.

  “Good news! Good news! What you hold it so long for?” demanded Hattie.

  “Kin git me a sack o’ tobacco,” Melody dreamed.

  Hattie’s eyes were far away. “I won’t know how to feel with a little pinch under the lip all the time agin,” she said.

  “We kin have hog meat in the house on Sunday,” cried Melody.

  “An’ me thinkin’ this was the last eatin’ we was gonna do for a long time,” said Hattie.

  “Wait awhile,” said Chinatown. “What for he so good to us all of a sudden?”

  “What you want to know all that for?” asked Hattie. “You afeared of workin’ in the fields?”

  “It ain’t natural for a white man to git mealy-mouth overnight.”

  “Don’t look the gift hoss in the mouth,” cried Hattie.

  “I’m pass the mouth now. I’m lookin’ right down his throat.”

  “You try to git funny ’bout ever’thin’,” she told him.

  Melody’s forehead wrinkled.

  “It do look queer, him bein’ so hard on us and then gittin’ soft all of a sudden.”

  Hattie smacked him across the face with a piece of hog gut.

  “Now you all got me to wonderin’,” she cried. “Whyn’t you jest keep shut and leave me git happy for once?”

  “What he say?” said Melody to his brother. “Tell us ever’thin’ he say.”

  “Yeah, what he say?” seconded Chinatown.

  “Ain’t say nothin’ much.”

  “Musta said somethin’,” said Melody.

  “Ain’t he say why he git easy on us?” asked Chinatown.

  “Ain’t say nothin’ much.”

  “Sure is funny.” Chinatown laughed.

  “What’s funny?” said Hattie.

  “Mr Johnston run poor white trash off his land for nothin’. His ridin’ boss carry a whip to hit folks for nothin’ and throw them off the land when they too old to make good crop. Now he got a good reason to git mad and he ain’t.”

  “Maybe he got religion,” said Hattie.

  Big Mat was scraping hard on the chitterlings.

  “Come to think,” he said, “there was somethin’ else—”

  “About you owin’ him the labor?” said Hattie.

  “Naw, he say that for us not to listen to any jackleg that come around. Say there some jacklegs tryin’ to git niggers to go up North and work.”

  They all grinned.

  With so many working, it wasn’t long before the chitterlings were boiling in the black iron kettle. Then there was nothing more to do but wait and watch the kettle sway on its hook in the fireplace.

  Hattie snuffed the lighted rag in the dish.

  “No use burnin�
� taller, with a cob fire agoin’.” She pulled up a homemade barrel chair and sat watching the kettle.

  Chinatown dragged the pallet from the corner where he and Melody slept. There was a white iron bed, but it was for Big Mat and Hattie.

  “When they be done?” asked Chinatown.

  “Come mornin’, they be done,” said Hattie.

  He lay on the pallet, with his head not far from the steaming kettle.

  “Don’t want to miss none of the smell, case I drop off,” he explained.

  “Sleep, boy. I wake you,” promised Hattie.

  Sitting on the floor, his back against the side of the warm chimney, Melody listened to the night noises through the open door. His eyelids drooped halfway and stayed like that.

  “Hand my Bible, woman,” grunted Big Mat.

  Big Mat was a big bag of muck dumped on a chair. His face was an old piece of harness leather left a whole season to blacken and curl in the sun and rain.

  “I say hand my Bible,” he repeated.

  So Hattie handed him the backless Bible, and he was mumbling to himself, as if he didn’t know the whole thing by heart.

  “You kin see all right?” she asked.

  “Huh.”

  “You ain’t bad off, are you, Mat?”

  “Why you ask?”

  “You studied your Bible this mornin’.”

  “Watch the pot,” he grunted.

  “You ought to feel good, Mat—us gittin’ a mule agin.”

  “Huh.”

  “Lawd, it’s come down on you agin!” She sighed.

  “What come down on me?”

  “You feelin’ the curse on you—I kin tell.”

  “The curse always on me.”

  Melody listened. He couldn’t tell Big Mat differently. He didn’t know what made Big Mat go childless year after year. Six springs Hattie was big but she dropped her babies before they got together enough to be human. To another man that wouldn’t have meant what it did to Big Mat. Mat studied the good book. He figured he knew when the Lord was picking on a man. Melody didn’t know differently. For some reason his mind snapped back to a day in the fields— a day long gone.

  A light spring rain fell before the sun. It was soon gone. The mist was rolling up from the new-turned furrows when Big Mat led the way to the fields. Melody shifted the mule harness from one shoulder to the other, and they walked through the hard dirt. The mule saw them a long way off and laughed like mules laugh when they have been lonely.