things was, in as reasonable a voice as I could manage. Which come out right then to be a kind of a whisperin’ croak.
“Look here,” I said, “I reckon maybe you-all made some kind of a mistake. See, I ain’t …”
Well, it was clear neither one of them gents was in much of a listenin’ mood. ’Cause the man with the scatter-gun looked up at Jube and nodded. Then that big Negro reached out and smacked me acrost the mouth with all his might, forward and back, usin’ a hand what felt like it was made out of spring steel. I noticed he was missin’ a couple joints from his fingers when he done it, but that didn’t hold him back a bit when it come to rattlin’ my brain cage from here to yonder.
When I’d shook the sparklin’ lights out of my eyes enough to where I could cuss, he did it again.
“Shut up,” the shotgun gent said mildly, whilst I spit blood and felt around a couple loose teeth with my tongue. “If we want any talkin’ from you, we’ll ask for it.”
I looked from him to his colored compadre and back again, thinkin’ real particular thoughts about what I’d a mind to do to both or either of ’em whenever I got the chance. And I hoped I would. But for the time bein’ it ’peared a whole heap smarter to just keep my ideas to myself.
“You got him, Purv?” There’d been this sound of a horse comin’ up the road behind me for a little while now. But I hadn’t paid it much mind till that voice spoke up, followed by a swish of linen skirts as the rider jumped to the ground. “You didn’t hurt him bad, did you?”
I jerked my head around and come right close to bitin’ through my tongue when I’d got a look at who the speaker was. She was one of the prettiest little things I ever did see. Maybe nineteen or twenty, with long black hair an’ shinin’ dark saucers for eyes, her cheeks all flushed an’ pink from the ridin’ and the way she run up so quick to kneel down beside me.
If I was some surprised at seein’ anything that fetchin’ in the company of Mr. Shotgun and big Jube, it weren’t nothin’ to what I felt a minute later, when she grabbed holt of my ears with both hands and leaned forward to plant a big wet kiss right square on my lips. Afterwards she backed off real fast and looked me up an’ down mighty peculiar for a long minute.
“It ain’t him,” she said finally, turnin’ to the man with the shotgun, the one she’d called Purv. Her voice had got awful cold durin’ that couple seconds she was starin’ at me. “You big dumb lunker!” she went on, spittin’ out the words like she was spittin’ out snake venom, “You cotched the wrong man!”
“Huh?” Purv come a step closer, his shotgun still steady on my brisket. “Damnation, Lila. You certain?” He squinted up his eyes and cocked his head over to one side, peerin’ down at my face as though he was seein’ me for the first time. “This-un surely does favor him. Though when you mention it he do seem a couple pounds heavier than what I recall. And maybe a tad shaggier ’round the ears, too. …”
Lila answered him with a word I didn’t think a lady’d ought to know. Then she got up and walked on back to where her horse was restin’ three-legged in the shade. “Don’t you ’spect I’d be able to tell if’n it was him? You think I wouldn’t recognize any man what …” She broke off and spun round on her heel.
“You just go ahead an’ take my word on it. It ain’t him. Now what are we goin’ to do about it?”
The man with the shotgun shifted his feet kind of awkward-like, glancin’ at Jube. “Take him along with us?” he asked, not sounding terrible certain. “He’s a big-un. Could make a right powerful field hand onct we got him broke in right.”
“You know the rules. We don’t take nobody back yonder what might have kinfolks or friends anywheres about this country. It ain’t worth the trouble.” Lila was lookin’ at me kind of thoughtful now. Reminded me of some li’l green frog on a lily pad eyin’ a blue-tail fly. “Uncle’s awful partic’lar about his rules bein’ broke. Myself, I’d hate to be the one to explain it to him.”
“We don’t know nothing ’bout this gent,” Purv answered, a mite peevish it seemed to me. “Prob’ly ain’t got no folks hereabouts nohow. ’Pears to be just some kind of a low-ridin’ drifter.”
Lila smiled a sort of a half smile. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“Ain’t nobody else in this whole wide world but me,” I said. “’Less’n you count my daddy an’ eighteen brothers. Ever one of ’em’s half man an’ half gator. With another half piney woods rooter throwed in for good measure.”
I was lyin’ pretty broad, of course. And I reckoned they all knowed it. But on t’other hand, they couldn’t be real sure what was the actual truth neither. And that there was the general idea.
“Well,” Purv says, lookin’ at me all disgusted with his bottom lip poked out, “I reckon we better just kill him then and be done with it. Jube can bury him so deep in these woods them eighteen brothers’ll spend the rest of their natural days lookin’ for a bone big enough to use as a toothpick!”
Lila nodded and glanced at me in a way that made me think she’d a little rather do the deed herself as let Purv at it. And judgin’ from the .38 Colt in that holster at her waist, I’d a idea she wouldn’t have no trouble managin’ it if she took the notion. But then she frowned and shook her head.
“Too many folks hereabouts to take a chanct on shootin’.” She almost sounded disappointed. “I passed a farm house not more’n a half mile back. And they’s a settlement a couple miles further on, this side the river. Never can tell who-all might hear the sound of it and come snoopin’. Likely before we could even get out of the country good.”
“Well …” Purv lifted his eyes up to Jube, who was standin’ over me with his big fists restin’ on his hips, and I saw Lila nod in agreement.
“Jube, honey,” she said, all sweetness an’ smiles. “We need you to kill this man for us. Without no fuss nor callin’ out, but just as quick an’ quiet as you can with your two bare hands.”
I didn’t waste any time lookin’ up at Jube. Weren’t no doubt in my mind he’d do what he was told. Instead, I made a sudden lunge for the gent with the shotgun. Figured if I was to have to die anyhow, I’d at least try an’ fix it so it weren’t neither quiet nor easy for ’em. Just some part of my natural-borned cussedness, I imagine.
Only I didn’t come half as close to layin’ a hand on Purv as I thought I would. When I said that Jube was quick for a big man, I didn’t tell the half of it.
I hadn’t got more’n a foot off the ground when his big paw come down on my right shoulder, clampin’ up so tight I felt my arm turnin’ numb. Then he yanked me back and upwards, throwing his left arm acrost my throat so’s I didn’t even have a chanct to cuss or yell out.
I’d played at this game a time or two my ownself, though. So I turned my head and tucked my chin into my chest almost without thinkin’. But when Jube grabbed a big fistful of hair with his free hand and started in to pull, it hurt so fierce I almost couldn’t keep my wits about me. Just barely managed to kick back with a spurred boot heel and grind it down onto his bare foot.
That colored man was a heap better at followin’ orders than I’d of been at a time like that. ’Cause he didn’t hardly yelp or cry out a-tall. Just made a little sound like a wheezin’ grunt whilst he stepped back an’ throwed me to the ground, usin’ his grip on my hair for leverage. I felt a bunch of it come loose in his fingers ’bout the same time my nose bored into the dirt. A instant later the breath was bein’ crushed out of me by a big heavy knee in the small of my back.
Jube let me have a whoppin’ left and a right to the ears with his open palms, purely out of meanness for the hurt I’d caused him. Then he got his fingers round my throat and started in to squeeze.
I mean I was in some sorry shape at that moment. My mouth was fillin’ up with sand so’s I couldn’t take