Fiction: A Killing on a Bridge (21) A historical fiction

Saint Sebastian River Bridge
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By Roger Owens

Friday,
August 11, 1922

Red had been running back and to between taking care of Guy and trying to keep the farm going. He tried to do most of his work before dawn or after dark, but he was working for two.
    And yesterday he was sure he’d seen someone watching from over Ezra’s way. Probably spyin’ on him for them Ashleys. He had never met any of the Frankenfields personally, so wouldn’t know one if he saw him. They had been Guy’s occasional drinking and carousing buddies, but he doubted that would stop them killing him if it was business. You do business with the Ashleys, he reckoned, you’d damn well better do as you’re told.
    And sure as shit, somebody had blown guy’s God damn leg off. You’d think they would of let it go after that. Lucky for the spy Ezra hadn’t seen him in the gathering darkness, Red thought.

Ezra Stone always carried a shotgun at home

    Ezra Stone, the old black cane farmer to the west of Guy and Red’s place, was also the Reverend Ezra Ezekiel Stone, Bible-thumpin’ hellfire-and-damnation preacher at the Grace Baptist Chapel of Love and Forgiveness. He stood five foot six in tall alligator skin cowboy boots, was as dark as charcoal, and looked like skinny black sausages tied tight with baling wire. The Reverend’s muscles stood out, veins popping, from a slim frame with absolutely no fat on it whatsoever, and he always carried a shotgun at home, one of those odd-looking Browning Auto-5’s, that they called the Humpback.

It was one of the early 1900 models, made in Belgium, and in Red’s opinion a finer weapon than the Remington model. Thing was, he short-loaded his first two twelve-gauge shells with dry beans. He claimed dried peas had better accuracy, being more uniformly round; they just didn’t carry enough of the sting of God’s righteous vengeance to the backside of some poor sinner with no more sense than to trespass on Ezra’s land. Way he saw it, he was doing them a favor, showing them the grievous error of their wicked ways. If he got to the third round you’d better be in the next county, or your ass was going to get shot with real lead.

Tomorrow was Saturday, market day, and Red needed to get his produce to the village and get it sold. He didn’t think either the Frankenfields or the Ashleys would be crazy enough to kill him in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of witnesses. Senegal would be there with Titian the giant mule and his wagon to collect his due, and Red couldn’t let his brother Guy down. According to Doc Sampson it would be at least two or three months before Guy would be able to get around.
    And what could he do when he did? A one-legged man on crutches can’t farm. He couldn’t cut trees. He might could saw logs or run a still, which was what had gotten them in this mess in the first place. Maybe tend bar or run one of those new fillin’ stations that had sprung up, following and profiting from the recent flood of northerners in their cars. The Great War was over these four years, and with the peace had come countless tourists and immigrants from the colder climes.

Red needed to get the hell out

    But right this minute, what Red needed to do was finish his picking and get the hell out.
    When he figured it was dark enough, he went up and down the rows as fast as he could, missing a few ripe tomatoes in the dark and picking a few that could have stood another few days on the vine. By full dark he was loaded and ready to go. He considered for a minute, then drove out the gate and around to Reverend Stone’s house. Red had it in mind to sharecrop with Ezra, as honest and hardworking a man as any he knew. Maybe have him spread it around about how he’d bought the Dedges out. Ezra had no qualms about telling fibs. He said the only place he never told a lie was in the pulpit.
    When he drove up, Stone was sitting on his porch in a rocker, shotgun across his lap. As Red stepped up to the house he motioned to another rocker, on the other side of the screen door.
    Red sat. Ezra looked off into the evening, his face a study in severe ebony. Every tiniest muscle and tendon in his neck and face stood out as if chiseled. He turned tiny jet eyes on Red and gave a minuscule nod, barely moving, the sinews under his taught skin rippling. “Wondered if you’d stop over.” His voice was deep and resonant, at odds with his slight form, and Red could imagine that voice filling the Chapel of Love and Forgiveness when he preached. He looked back out towards Red’s patch. “Been some fellas watchin’ your place, last day or so. Heard you had some trouble.”
    Red allowed as how they’d had their share the last few weeks. “Guy’s no good to farm anymore, and the Ashleys are after us. I can’t work it myself, and I can’t stay or they’ll kill me for sure.”
    The Reverend Stone was nodding like he already knew all this, as if telling a Sunday School student they’d got their Bible passage right. “These weren’t Ashleys, though. They were Frankenfields. First Kenny, then yesterday Bobby.”
    Red frowned, then grinned. One guess confirmed. “So, if they were on your land, why didn’t you shoot ’em with that there scattergun? It’s only beans, right?”

Stone’s left eyebrow rose

    Stone’s left eyebrow rose a sixteenth of an inch. “I didn’t shoot ’em, son, because I know who they are. The Frankenfields are some mean-assed sons of bitches, and if their victim is black all they need do is wear a sheet and burn a cross and poof! It’s the KKK. They use that shit to cover up ordinary crimes against blacks all the time. And I have no wish to live this long only to hang from my own mulberry tree.”
    Red rubbed his jaw, looking out at the substantial tree in the front yard. The fat berries were just starting to ripen up. Another white man might have been offended by being called “son,” but this black man carried such dignity and authority he thought nothing of it. “Can’t say as I blame you,” he replied.
    Stone turned an eye on him. “You have a look in your eye, young man, and I’m not sure I like it.”
    Red laughed. “I’ve heard that before. From a fella named Senegal: ‘Why I don’ like that look?’ he says.”
    Instead of nodding the Reverend rocked back and to a few times. “Oh yes, Senegal Johnson. One of my best customers.”
    Red looked sideways at him. “Senegal Johnson goes to your church?”
    The shadow of a smile drifted like a cloud across the black man’s face. “Of course. Every Sunday and every Wednesday night for prayer meetings, too. And he brings the girls, and his addict boys. What, because he’s a whoremaster he shouldn’t go to church? They all need the Word more than anybody. Listen son, the Church isn’t a showcase for saints, it’s a hospital for sinners. And whores and their masters are some of those injured the worst by this life. Many of the girls are literally born into the business, and if their momma is good-looking, they’re likely to be good-looking too. It’s almost like an illness passed from mother to daughter. They don’t have many choices in life. And those skinny black boys? Morphine addicts. Senegal gives them just enough to keep them around and satisfied. Sees to it they have food to eat. On their own they would be dead already. They’d spend all their money on the drugs until they starved.”
    Red understood that. Kind of the way some men couldn’t hold their liquor and couldn’t put it down, either. But he had to get to business. “Reverend, I was hopin’ you might consent to work our farm and take a portion of the produce in payment. Like I said, the Ashleys are after us. They done set them Frankenfields after us too, and they already done gone and shot Guy’s leg off, and I just can’t stay or I’m gonna get my ass shot too.”

Red was clearly agitated

    The young farmer was clearly agitated, Stone thought. He considered for a moment, seeing Red Dedge rub his knees, bounce his foot, shake his head. Nervous as a whore in church, the Reverend thought. It was one of his favorite jokes. He had several. Never noted them being nervous though; just looking for forgiveness like everybody else. Finally, he put the earnest young Dedge out of his misery. “Thirty.”
    Red squinted. “What?”
    That granite face turned to him. “I’ll take thirty percent. Twenty percent for doing the work, and a tithe to the Church.”
    Red breathed out hard, put his face in his hands. It was a fair price; he’d expected half. Little enough to pay for your life.
    “Thank you, Reverend, that’s a weight off my shoulders. Now, you’ll have to get the produce to market. Do you still have that old truck, or do you need to use mine?”
    Without moving a muscle, Stone radiated irritation. “Of course I still have it, out in the barn. It’s how I haul my cane, son. You don’t see it much because cane only goes to the market once a year. Once I’ve cut cane and burned the stubble, I use it to drag the field, but the rest of the time I drive the Royal.”
    Red had seen the car around town. It was a 1916 Royal Model G, the last year the Royal Motor Company, of Cleveland, Ohio, had built that model. It wasn’t a rich man’s car, but it wasn’t far off the mark.
    Red knew Stone had men who worked for him; his sixty acres of cane was more work than any one man could do, and it turned him a tidy profit. He’d have help getting Red’s produce in on time.
    “Now, about Senegal. He’ll come early on Saturdays, by seven usually, and buy a good bit of the harvest.”
    Ezra Stone looked indulgently at the boy. “Don’t you worry about Senegal Johnson. He’ll come right here to get his produce, won’t have to go to the market a-tall. Not for that, anyway. Besides, I like talking to Senegal, we argue politics, and his mule is the sweetest thing. Always have a treat for Titian when I see her. She likes apples, but what she really loves is sugar cane. Which, it turns out, I have in great supply.”
    Red was grinning. “I sure didn’t know you and Senegal were friends. Wouldn’t have expected that. And the girls too, huh?”
    The look Stone turned on him, with his hickory-root face, was almost pity. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Red Dedge. Did you know Guy’s been buying my cane for his ’shine for the last three years?”

Copyright © 2022 by Roger Owens