The Mercy Seat (51 page)

So I don't know why folks around here tell the Lodi killing so often, or they used to, maybe they don't so much anymore. But it didn't have any outlawry in it, no robbery or posse, no marshal even to speak of but that colored deputy out of Woolerton and old Tecumseh Moore. May be we're partial to it on account of it's our own, you know how I mean. Like family. Like how you might have an ornery son who's mean as the dickens but you're a little bit partial to him as well. You know they tell the Sabe Cutler killing, and the Starkey boys, both them killings, plumb up to this day. But still not to the degree of the Lodi killing, and what I think, I think it's on account of they were brothers, and on account of them girls. A killing in a family, between the members of a family, now, that's a terrible thing. They tell me it's the most usual type of a killing, I don't know about that, but I do know it's a type that can tear the heart out of some people, just rip a family wide open, and from there on out to the town. How else are you going to act?

Well, what my dad told me, the first he knew anything about it, Fate Lodi was standing out in the street one morning, hollering for his brother. Going like this:
soooeee soooeee—
hog-calling him, you know—then he'd throw his head back and gobble like a turkey. Now, that's an old Indian trick. I've always heard Indians would do that if they aimed to kill you or die trying, and I reckon that's what Fate meant by it and I reckon John knew it too. Dad did, and he didn't know just quite what to do. It was kind of a cool day in March, but it was bright out. Bright and still, no wind to speak of, and Dad had the stable doors open. This'd been along about ten o'clock. Here the one brother is, hammering away with his crosspeen, minding his own business, going about his work; here's the other'n outside in the street gobbling like a turkey, or in other words calling him out.

Now, as it happened, there wasn't any customers in the livery yet that morning, and I don't know if folks just hadn't got there yet from wherever-all they had to drive a team from or if word had got around there was going to be trouble—though that's generally more liable to draw folks than to make them shy away, near as I've ever seen it—or I don't know just what happened, but anyhow they wasn't no customers, only Dad and John Lodi inside the barn. According to what my dad told me, Lodi never so much as lifted his head from the anvil, not even at the first sooey, just kept on working—he was beating out a new plow blade, if I remember right—and on the surface of it acted like he didn't even hear all that carrying on his brother was doing outside on Main Street in public daylight. But ever time Fate would cut loose with one of these animal sounds, John'd bring that hammer down harder. Just blam and blam! and
blam.
Ruint that piece of metal and kept on hitting it anyhow. Slower, and harder. The sound ringing out in that empty barn, Dad said, clanging slow like a dead church bell, echoing high in the rafters. In a little while John put down the crosspeen and picked up the sledge. Blam.
Blam. Blam!
BLAM!

Well, my dad, you know, his temper'ment was always to be a peace-maker. That's just the kind of man he was. Folks around here know it. Some people—now, I don't want to say who—but some people are forever hankering for a fight, and I don't mean to be a fighter theirselves but I mean to watch other folks fight it out. There's some people, if it looks like something is stirring, they'll just stand over to the side and holler sic 'em, but my dad was never that type of man. Not to mention John Lodi was his employee and had worked good and faithful for him for close to nine years. So Dad felt like he had to do something to prevent what looked like was going to be trouble, and he studied on it a little while to see what he might do. He knew he was up against something, though of course he didn't yet know the half of it, and he knew he'd have to figure some way to handle it. The day was bright out, like I mentioned, and Dad would be at a disadvantage the minute he stepped out that open doorway until his eyes settled, so he wasn't interested in just walking out yonder to see what was going on. If a man hoots and sooeys and does all that animal rigmarole to a fellow, well, you know a thing or two about it, and one thing you know is, he is full of contempt to his eyeballs, and the reason he's full of contempt is on account of he's scared. And a scared man is a dangerous man, everybody knows it, and my dad didn't aim to put himself unarmed and blinded in the middle of that.

So Dad went on about his business, kindly kept an eye on John Lodi while he was at it, and did pretty much like him. Acted like he couldn't hear a thing. But he told it like this, said, You could slice the air with a sawblade—and by that he meant the tension, I imagine, and the anger, and them clangs getting louder, and he believed John Lodi was fixing to blow. So he says to himself, Well, now, I'm going to have to do something. He stepped over to the stalls—I forget now what he'd been working at that morning, if he ever told me—but he quit whatever it was and went over and commenced to harnessing our old mare, name of Vergie, and I don't even know how come her to be in the stable instead of out in the lot. She was a pitiful old thing, and I believe Dad had to shoot her not long after, but he went and caught her up like he was going to hitch her to the wagon. Now, we had the prettiest matched team at that time, a pair of highstepping trotters, and of course Dad's saddlehorse and DewMan's and Clyde's, but they were either all ever one out in the lot or else Dad figured Fate Lodi was liable to shoot whatever stuck its head out the door first and he figured it'd ought to be Vergie as anything else, but anyhow Vergie it was, and Dad told John Lodi he was going to meet the train, which was a story didn't hold an ounce of water because the train didn't come till twelve-oh-one and you sure didn't need no horse and wagon to get to the depot unless you meant to carry a load back because the depot was just up the road a little ways, and you sure wasn't going to carry no big load with that Vergie—she was all broke down in her hips, I don't know if she could've hardly pulled a buggy at that point, much less that old wagon, much less tote any kind of a load inside the wagon—but anyhow John didn't look crossways nor pause a minute beating that poor pitiful plow blade, and Dad eased old Vergie to the door. Or “eased” is not just the right word, because Dad told me he liked to jangled that harness to pieces trying to make a little noise.

Paused a minute at the doorway with Vergie's nose stuck out there, just a-jingling and a-jangling to beat the band, hollered at John again over the banging and sooeys and gobbling, “I'm headed up yonder to the de-pot. Anybody comes looking for me, you tell 'em I'll be back in a little bit.” Thinks about it a second, hollers as loud as he can holler, “YOU TELL THAT DADGUM MARSHAL WHEN HE GETS HERE I WAITED HALF THE MORNING, COULDN'T WAIT NO LONGER, BUT YOU TELL HIM TO STAY PUT, I'M GOING TO BE RIGHT BACK.”

He thought that might do some good. He figured if Fate Lodi was ever going to hear or believe it was J. G. Dayberry coming out the door and not John Lodi, he'd of done it by now, and Dad noised his way on out. Kept Vergie in between him and them turkey gobbles, which hadn't let up a iota, and stopped in the daylight to get his eyes back. Peered up the street over Vergie's back. Fate wasn't a hundred yards away, there in the street in front of Tatum's store, and Dad said he could see right off Lafayette Lodi was armed to the teeth and soused to the gills. That's just how Dad put it. Said he had a Winchester in the saddle holster and another'n laying acrossed the horn. Had a pistol belt strapped on and a Colt stuck in each holster, one in the front of his britches, and one in his fist, waving it around. His other fist had aholt of a whiskey bottle, waving it around too, which goes to show how drunk he was, because you know that was a criminal offense. This was Indian Territory, people, liquor was strictly against the law anywhere inside these borders. These deputy U.S. marshals were liable to be on your tail in a minute with a warrant for introducing and selling liquor in the Territory, and we're not talking about no piddling little offense neither, you were going to go see Judge Parker on that one, that was sure. Which is not to say folks didn't drink plenty whiskey, run plenty of it and sell it—bootlegging and horsestealing was the two main ways some folks got their start in this country—but a fellow didn't go prancing around on Main Street waving it around.

Dad said Fate didn't appear to be worried about a deputy U.S. marshal showing up, nor shook up any about an old white nag creeping out the stable door in full harness and no wagon in sight either. Said he hardly appeared to notice excepting to crow louder, but said Fate's horse was sure jumpy, but Dad kept on anyhow, a little bit and a little bit. That horse was a little old blue roan, nervous as a flinder, and every time Fate would throw back his head to gobble, it'd flinch and dance. He had it lashed to the rail in front of Tatum's and he'd rare back to yodel and fall back against the saddle and that horse'd shy and buck and Lodi'd cuss awhile and take him a swig. He was making a pretty little scene for hisself and too drunk to care, I reckon, though folks was cleared off the street entirely. Dad said you couldn't have roused a mouse. People ain't blind to a powder keg when they see it, and Dad said that street was dead as Sunday morning. Wasn't nobody visible about. Said he allowed there was plenty watching from somewheres but nobody aiming to mix in it, and Dad could see he was just on his own. Well, he kept on north, easing along a little, kept that old mare between him and Lodi, and my dad didn't have a sign of a gun on him. Would you call that a brave man? Brave or plain stupid, that's how my mama told it, but Dad said he did what he had to do. Said a man sees what he's got to do, now, he's just got to get up yonder and do it, can't go wavering and misguessing about. So Dad eased along the street to where he was about even with Fate Lodi wallowing and carrying on. He stopped then. He had to do a little more studying on it, see, contemplate something or another to talk about.

In a little bit he says, “Morning, Fate.” Just as calm and friendly. Like they was just passing on the street in front of the bank. Now, my dad had a nodding acquaintance with Fate Lodi, or you might even call it speaking, and I guess about everybody in these parts did. Fate ran that mercantile store up at Waddy Crossing and folks around there traded with him for feed and drygoods and all, but the main thing he sold out of it was guns, and folks from all over this country would trade with him on that. They'd come about as far to buy a gun off Fate Lodi as they'd come to have his brother fix their singletree, and I don't rightly know why unless it was just the amount he kept on hand and the kind and the price. He claimed to be a gunsmith but I don't believe he ever made any guns that I knew anything about, but I do know he repaired them, freshened out barrels and re-set sights and what have you, but mostly he just sold 'em. A gun trader, that's all there was to him. He wasn't no gunsmith, the way John was. Nobody told me that. Didn't anybody have to tell me that, I just knew it, and I was just a boy. But people all around would go to Big Waddy Crossing to buy guns off Fate Lodi, and I'll allow my dad might have even, once in a while. So Dad had some acquaintance with the man, but they wasn't what you'd call friendly, and then too, it was Dad's own employee and friend Fate was trying to call out. But Dad proceeded to the best of his ability.

“Turned off kindly cool this morning, ain't it?” he says.

Well, I guess Fate didn't quite know what to make of it. Dad said he blinked a couple of times, held real still, stared out in the street at Vergie.

“Reckon it'll get hot enough soon enough, don't you reckon?” Dad says, friendly like, just passing the time of day, you know.

Fate stood as still as an old souse can stand still, is how Dad put it, and stared at Vergie's face.

“I'm about to head up to the station yonder. Y'all come go with me,” Dad says, just lilting his voice up so nice and light. Thought he might persuade him with honey, I suppose, but you know there's no persuading a drunk. The way Dad told it, he said Fate kindly grunted or something, like an old boar. Said Fate raised that pistol, or tried to, the muzzle dancing around yonder, said he couldn't keep it steady for nothing, you know how wavery a old drunk is, but Dad said he didn't believe Lodi could hit him by aiming for him but he might hit him by accident and Dad just ducked down a little tighter behind Vergie's neck.

Said Fate hollered across to him, “You go to hell, horse!”

That was the first Dad knew Fate thought it was Vergie talking to him. Then my daddy understood he was in a pretty bad fix. Said he knew if he stepped out from behind Vergie, not only was that going to leave him without a ounce of protection but it was liable to startle Lodi so bad as to set him off sure enough. Said on the other hand, if Fate believed it was a horse trying to sweet-talk him, said he—meaning Dad—said he didn't like to be standing anywhere near around it. Said he'd seen a old drunk wood-hauler one time nearly beat his wife to death with a piece of hickory trying to mash the crawling snakes off her, said he reckoned if Fate thought it was a talking horse, he was sure enough going to commence firing one or more of them many firearms, and then no telling what. So if Dad was unsettled before on how to proceed, now he was sure enough stumped. But you know, sometimes when you're in it there's not a thing in the world for it but to just go ahead on.

“Yessir,” Dad says, “reckon it'll be hot as the dickens here before we kno—”

Lodi fires off that gun.

Dad said them bullets went ever which way. They was one lodge in the wooden sign over the front door of the stable—I seen it myself, that very afternoon when I come in after the shooting was all over with—and that sign was eighty yards or more off to the right of where Lodi was standing and close back. Slug stayed in it till the building burnt down in Twenty-nine, I reckon; I don't know that anybody ever climbed up there and dug it out. One of 'em went off some other direction, one zinged right over Dad's head. It was about then that Dad said he thanked his lucky stars and fool tender heart he'd kept that old pitiful mare for me to ride around on even when she went rheumy in one eye and got hard of hearing, because that horse never batted a eyelash. But said that blue roan liked to pitched a fit, whinnied and snorted and jerked around yonder, said it sounded like a big old buck snorting fear, and if that's not a sound that'll chill you, but Dad said he just gulped him in a deep breath of air and went on.