The Outlaw Album: Stories

            Mr. Willie Johnstone, bourbon in hand, at a fish fry of redear perch on the Eleven Point, 1995: “I guess your granddaddy and ol’ Blue was with the horse most days in them years. The lunch whistle’d blow at the mill’n lots of times you’d pretty quick see William Sidney walkin’ the path yonder above Eccleston’s, the path that’s gone now but used to be the nigh cut through those woods that were there and came out into a backyard on the Hill. Fetchin’ ol’ Blue, I guess, to work that horse for the lunch hour in a field somewhere over there. I can still see him in my head, his shape goin’ up that path—your granddaddy walked about like you do, kid, sort of hunched, like he was halfway duckin’ from somethin’ all the time.”

            Mrs. E. H. Chambliss, with her eyes closed and her hands clasped, on a porch swing in July 1995: “Oh, them two loved that horse. Which is sad, ’cause I think the horse is what killed him, really. The heartbreak, don’t you know?”

            Mr. Tom Finney, after my father’s funeral, while carving a ham: “Shit, boy, his name wasn’t Greenvoe—wherever’d you get that from? And he wasn’t much of a horse, neither, if I’m rememberin’ the horse you mean. Used to stop on the far half of the track and drop horse apples in the midst of a goddamn race—that sound like a great champ to you?”

            Mr. Ronnie Thigpen, at his daughter’s home near Egypt Grove, with the television blaring world news and a rack of medicine bottles on the table at his side, 1994: “There had been a drunk hobo run over by a train’n broken apart a month or so earlier, so when I seen all this blood’n splintered wood’n stuff, I thought, Uh-oh, another drunk hobo forgot to jump. Then I seen it was a nigger, a nigger from town, there, that had forgot to jump. So I told the man at the train depot there was a sort of familiar-lookin’ nigger dead in the weeds over by the tracks, and I guess he flagged a deputy.”

            My oldest living relative, while picking cherries from her yard trees, 1996: “That’s ’cause you got the name wrong. His name wasn’t Blue—it was Ballou

. Folks misheard his last name and thought it was his first name, so that’s what he got called. His wife used to be around, did housework and the like, and her name was Ballou. Look for him under Ballou.”

            Summer had its fangs out sharp and long that year, sucking the joy from every sunny hour. The heat led to erupting meannesses between intimates, bursts of spite that bubbled the truth up top to be hurled from one sweated sopping side of the bed to the other, never to be truly forgotten or gotten over. Howl Creek, a rumpled, dissolute puddling of water, became the nearest splashing place, and many folks of both sexes took small relief in the darkness there. A fainting quiet fell over the darkened town, and headaches ebbed in the silence, until an approaching train would release a rallying moan into the night. The railroad tracks ran beside the creek and the moan stirred sleep all across town.

            Sheriff Solomon Combs, in a ledger found under a basement staircase at the courthouse, dated August 4, 1938: “Ballou. Colored. First name not sure. Drunk and hit by a train hauling timber. Deceased. Accident.”

            Mrs. E. H. Chambliss, waiting for hot rolls at the Ramada Inn buffet, on Easter Sunday, 1996: “The horse. I’m sure anything that might’ve happened, or maybe didn’t, was about that horse.”

            Mr. Tom Finney, in the parking lot outside Kenny’s Walleye Restaurant, summer 1996: “That worthless pony is probably still lollygaggin’ on the far turn to spread horse apples, Danny. Hurry’n you can maybe still catch a glimpse of ’im yet, dawdling along the rail with his ass to the finish line and his tail in the air.”

            Someone official must’ve carried the news to the Hill. Knocking on doors to raised houses made of things not meant to be nailed together, but that stood for years, invalid structures patched further with odds and ends as passing seasons brought rot to the wood and old nails fell away. In the shade and fine dust beneath the houses, dogs have belly-dragged in and out until belly-shaped draws have been wiggled into the dirt. Kids follow dogs, and on the Sundays of most seasons muffled playing voices rise from the shaded crawl spaces and catch the wind to fly. Knock, knock—You Blue’s wife? These li’l girls his kids? Well, he won’t be home no more. Jumped in front of a timber train. Must’ve been drunk. You can bury the boy over at Sadie’s.

            Mr. Edward H. Chambliss, with his chin in the air and his ancient fists balled, on his front porch, early 1997: “William Sidney always was my best friend, goddamn you, Danny. And best friend don’t mean nothin’ if you won’t stand for each other when the bad time comes. You might oughta keep clear of me. You might oughta do that. And don’t call my wife, neither.”

            My oldest living relative, on the phone, early 1997: “These were not men lamed by any sorts of doubts about anything they did. Or might do yet—hear me?”