Paradise Sky

Then one day I was slopping the hogs, and this fellow rode up. He tied up his horse and come walking past the house to where I was working. I recognized him right off. He was that town drunk I told you about earlier, one that rode that day with Ruggert. Hubert was his name, if you remember, and my first thought was I wanted to kill him. If I had decided on it, I’d have had to strangle him with my bare hands or beat him to death with one of Mr. Loving’s piglets. Or the slop bucket. I had that in my hand, and that’s what I decided on. He come strolling up to me with a grin on his face, said, “Hey, boy. Loving around?”

I knew right then he didn’t know weasel shit from axle grease. It had been long enough for him to have forgot me, even if I hadn’t forgot him. I guess, too, I had changed a mite, except for those ears of mine, but the hat I had kind of fell down on them in such a way they didn’t quite look like swinging doors, and I had more hair. I had quit shaving it close to my head and was letting it grow out into a curly bo

“He’s up to the house,” I said, keeping my voice as even as I could, which was like a man walking along the edge of a cliff trying not to look down.

“I want to talk to him about a matter of business,” he said.

The only business I’d known Hubert to have was trying to get to the bottom of a bottle, but I did note he looked cleaner than I remembered. He had an air about him that was different. He carried himself like a wares salesman who had plans to con someone into buying a cheap set of pots for too much money.

“He’s resting,” I said.

“Well, you go get him, boy,” he said.

I didn’t like the way he said “boy.” I didn’t like that he helped kill my pa. I didn’t like him. I went up to the house, trembling with anger, went in through the back door like I was supposed to do at a white man’s house, though me and Mr. Loving didn’t stand by that way of doing things. I should add, to keep it all on the up-and-up, I knocked first, then went inside.

It was East Texas warm, yet Mr. Loving was sitting by the cookstove, had a fire going in it, and had a quilt thrown over him. I felt like a ham on slow bake in there, but he seemed fine with it. I said, “There’s a man to see you, and I know him.”

“Oh,” Mr. Loving said.

I told him quickly who he was.

“He used to be the town drunk,” Mr. Loving said.

“Used to?” I said.

“He got the cure, took up with a widow that had money, and now he owns the Wilkes Mercantile and General Store and Emporium.”

“Do tell,” I said.

“Yeah, I’ve known about it for a while but didn’t see no need to mention it to you. It has nothing to do with you being here. Knowing he’s prospering is of no importance. I been waiting for him to fall off the wagon and lose it all, actually. We go back out there, you think you can control yourself?”

“I don’t want to,” I said. “But I will.”

“All right, then. Help me up.”

Before we went outside, Mr. Loving took the Colt pistol and stuck it in his back pocket, which was one of those lined with oiled leather. He slipped that blanket around him, sort of like a poncho, so that it covered his gun. He told me to get the bucket by the door we used for gathering eggs, put the LeMat in there, and throw a di

I did that, and we went outside, Mr. Loving not making it too good but holding his head up, trying to act like he was ready to punch a bull in the face.

Outside, Hubert was gri

“I got me a spat of something,” Mr. Loving said. “I’m a bit under the weather with it.”

Hubert eyed me again. I could see he was starting to feel like he recognized me but hadn’t yet put a handle to me. I thought about going off to finish with the hogs but decided I’d stick. If Mr. Loving was nervous enough to put a gun in his back pocket and have me stuff one inside a bucket, I figured I should stay.

“What can I do for you?” Mr. Loving said.

“Well, sir. You and me done some business at the store, me buying vegetables from you and such. What I come to talk to you about is doing your hog killing for you. I started me a couple of services in town, and that’s one of them.”

“What’s the other?” I asked.

I shouldn’t have said nothing, and the way I said it was disrespectful. It wasn’t the words, it was the attitude. Like maybe he had become a cocksucker for money and I knowed it and was going to offer him two bits for the service.

Hubert said, “You let that boy talk to me like that?”

“He’s man-sized,” Mr. Loving said. “He had a question, and he asked it. Fact is, I’m curious. What is the other job you got? Is one of them distilling?”

“I give up the bottle,” he said. “And actually, it’s another job. I’ve become a field driver.”

Now, this ain’t a term I hear much anymore, but it was a fellow that rounded up loose stock, even dogs and cats, and stored them in a corral or pound at the edge of town. You was missing an animal, went over there and found it, you got it back for a fee. There was always the problem that some of the critters ended up in the pound hadn’t been loose to begin with and had been made loose, so to speak, due to that fee for their return. And if the stock wasn’t claimed, it ended up in the field driver’s smokehouse. Dogs and cats might not last longer than an evening due to the feed bills and the smaller fee. Field driving could be a sketchy business.

“Field driver isn’t a job,” Mr. Loving said, and I thought his tone was far more disrespectful than mine had been. “Anyone can round up a neighbor’s lost stock, and a righteous person won’t ask him for a dime to get it back.”

“I’m not here to debate the merits of my professions,” said Hubert. “I’m here to promote hog killing.”

“I can kill a hog,” Mr. Loving said.

“A dog can kill a hog,” Hubert said, “but if you bring them in, I’ll kill them, cut them, and smoke the meat, and you will be entitled to so many pounds of it. I will keep a bit of it for my troubles and for resale.”

“So I bring the hog to you, you kill it, take part of the meat, and smoke it? What have you done that I can’t do?”

“Why, I have saved you time, sir.”

“How do I know I’m getting my meat back?”

“That isn’t the issue,” Hubert said.

“It is with me.”

“We add up the pounds of your hogs, mark out what my portion is to be, and when you want that meat, you come in and shop for your other things, which you can put some meat toward, and if you want the meat, I’ll give you what you have coming. I also got a couple niggers who can make head cheese and such, and you’ll be entitled to some of that. It don’t matter if it’s your hog. What matters is you are entitled to a certain percentage of meat from a hog or to exchange it for goods.”

“I raise good hogs,” Mr. Loving said. “There’s folks aplenty who don’t. I don’t want some wormy critter with more bones than meat or one that’s nothing but fat. For that matter, I just don’t want no one else’s hog. You being the field driver, I might end up with a dog leg and a cat liver in place of the hog I brought to you. No, I’m going to decline with a degree of prejudice. I’ll kill my own hogs, or this boy here will do it for me, but thanks for the offer.”

“It would sure make your life easier,” Hubert said, trying to maintain his politeness but giving me the still-curious eye. “I been going around to all the farms, and I will swear to you that over half of the folks have made the agreement.”

“Slate me down for the half that hasn’t,” Mr. Loving said.

Hubert worked his top lip like he was trying to persuade a fly to get off of it, then said, “That’s the way you want it, of course. Can’t blame a fellow for asking.”