When my Uncle Nat was jist nine, they was building the big fireplace in the big house. Granddaddy Black John had got tired of messing with stoves and wanted him an open fire in the parlor that he could whittle in front of and spit into if he chose to, though Granny Eller would git after him about spitting in the house- even if it was into a fireplace. So on a fine fall day the mason come and they commenced.
The mason was a feller named Ransom J. Stuck and he had two boys who come with him to mix the mortar and carry the hod of bricks. These boys was none too bright and mixing mud and carrying bricks was about all their intelligence was up to. But, they was right smart workers and that makes up for a lot, even limited brains. The old man had them boys digging a pit for the footer of this fireplace while he sawed out an opening in the north wall of the house for the chimney. Once the hole was dug, they broke up all kinds of old bottles and jars in the bottom of it to discourage the gophers and armadillos from digging under the foundation. They poured a good mess of concrete into the hole and reinforced it with junk iron from the old forge north of the house. Then old Stuck got down to laying the bricks. Granddaddy had traded a cow for them bricks and they was good 'uns, too. Red as the Red River in flood. Now, Ransom may have been jist a sight brighter than his boys, but that old booger could lay them bricks- plumb and level as the Pyramids of Egypt. He had got up to about hearth level when he and granddaddy and everbody else was drawn to somebody hollerin' over west of the place. Now, this hollerin' was serious hollerin' and so they all knew that something serious had taken place.
Now, about a mile northwest of Granddaddy's place was a family of share croppers named Hughes. They lived in a little Jenny Lind house with two rooms and a shed for a kitchen. Four or five kids and a worn out old woman in that pitiful house! Old Hughes- Tom, I think was his given name- though everbody always called him "Hughes" or "Old Hughes," he was a character and put on certain airs, though he was as poor as Job's turkey. For instance, he chewed tobacco and ever time he spit, he made a big deal of the thang, spitting and saying "Phooey!" when he did, like some big exclamation mark. Always wore a cheap red bandanna around his neck like a picture-show cowboy. And always wore a big hat and tucked his overalls legs into the top of his boots. When he come into Thackerville, the men would always say, "There comes old Charlie Goodnight," or, "I thought Booger Red was down in Texas." It was kindly pitiful, if the truth be known.
Well, this feller come a hollerin' for somebody to come, so Granddaddy hitched up a sorrel mare to his buggy and off they went over the new plowed ground of the west field, bumping and thumping all the way. Now, unbeknownst to Granddaddy and everbody else, Uncle Nat had crawled up into the luggage hole in the back of the buggy and was holding on for dear life as Granddaddy whipped that mare across that new plowed ground.
Well, they get to the Hughes place and Leland Foster, the foreman for the Gladney Ranch where the Hugheses share cropped is standing in the yard next to Mrs. Hughes who is sitting on an up-turned lard bucket with her face in her hands. When Granddaddy approaches with the feller who'd come a hollerin', Leland jist tosses his head in the direction of a big post oak tree down the hill from that little shack of a house. Granddaddy starts in that direction when he notices Uncle Nat following him.
"Nat, what the hell are you doing here?" he says.
"I jist wanted to see what was goin' on, Papa."
"Well, come on then. You wanted to see, so now you'll see!"
As they come near that old tree they could see Hughes hunched over with his head on his chest like he was asleep or drunk. Only thang is, they was this dark stain all over his chest that went down past the crotch of his overalls. His booted feet were funny, too, with the toes turned out. Uncle Nat suddenly thought about hog-killin' time. In the sandy dirt next to his blood-stained hand was a cut-throat razor, and we're talkin' about it literally, now, son.
Granddaddy squatted down and grabbed a tuft of old Hughes's hair and gently lifted the head.
"Well, the son-of-a-bitch meant business, anyhow," he said in the loud voice that he normally used.
Old Hughes had cut his gullet clean to the neck bone, first on the left side and then on the right. Two cuts. The blood had sprayed in a half circle all over his front and around him on the ground.
At the sight of the wounds and the pale neck muscles drained of blood, Uncle Nat began to retch and turned away.
"I reckon you'll thank twice next time you want to see,'" Granddaddy said.
Well, they got Leland down and the hired hand and carried the body up to the buggy. The hired hand had to hold the head up to keep it from pullin' completely off. They managed to get the body in the baggage hole and Uncle Nat got up front with his daddy for the ride back to the big house. They wasn't any real roads up to the Hughes place, so they went where the sheriff and the undertakers could come and deal with the mess.
When they got him home and out of the baggage hole, they laid him out on the back porch and poured buckets of water over him to kinda clean him up. Uncle Nat carried that water from the well.
Well, the Hugheses moved away- nobody knew where, and the old house finally sagged and caved in. There's a cattle manger there where they feed the cows, and a barn, but apart from that, there's nothing left of the place.
Uncle Nat and me were squirrel hunting over that way one time, years after this had happened- that was long about 1911 or 12, I reckon. Anyhow, that was thirty years or more after that sad thang, and Uncle Nat took me to the tree and told me the story. Leland or somebody had scooped out dirt at the place to cover the old man's blood out of pity for the family, and the low place in the ground was still there. Still is, far as I know, because ever time I am over that way, I look and remember. That low place in the ground is still there.
I remember asking Uncle Nat, "Did that thang bother you any?"
"Bother me? I slept with old Hughes most nights for the best part of the next year!"
"Why'd he do it, you reckon?" I asked.
"Well, they was pore as pore could be, and he had all these big idees," he said, "and the old lady put it this way: 'I expect he jist give out.'"
Ever time I sit in front on Uncle Nat's fireplace with a big hell-roarin' fire in it, I thank about old Hughes and that fine fall day. It's a fine fireplace, too. Old Ransom J. Stuck could make a flue on a fireplace that would draw mighty fine. This one will pull a lady's skirt and petticoat up.
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