Bluetick
by Tony BurtonWalter Shelton patted and smoothed the mound of red clay with the back of the shovel. Another long, hot Georgia day was done, and Helen no doubt had corn bread, fried pork chops, fresh tomatoes and mashed potatoes waiting on the table, with a pitcher of sweet iced tea between their two plates.
He was more tired than he thought he would be by today’s work. He sighed and scrubbed a tanned, liver-spotted arm across his brow. The farm work wasn’t getting any easier, and he reckoned he’d have to find some help again. He grimaced. Helen always argued with him about that. She didn’t understand, for some reason.
Ever since his son had been killed in that damned war over in Germany, he’d had to handle things with no other family menfolk around. Women like Helen, they could work some, but some things just took a man to do. Yep, he’d have to talk to her about getting help around here again.
Walter entered the kitchen, easing the screen door shut behind him. Didn’t do to make her mad if he could avoid it, he reasoned, and she always hated the sound of the slamming screen door. Scared her, she said. Hmph, he said.
He had been right about the dinner. There it was, on the kitchen table, with the tea waiting for him. Beads of sweat ran down the side of the pitcher like it was nervous. Helen was at the sink, washing her hands. She turned around as he entered, a grim look on her face.
“Reckon you forgot, Walter, that there’s revival all this week! We gotta rush through this meal if we’re gonna make it on time. Th’ Reverend Thompson, they say, is a real catamount behind th’ pulpit, and I don’t wanna miss a minute!” His wife plumped herself down into one of the wooden chairs by the table, and it protested a little, but she ignored it.
Walter’s mind worked quickly. “I don’t think I got time to wash up, Helen. We hafta miss tonight’s service, I reckon.” He looked down at his food, and quickly intoned their normal “blessing” prayer, so often said that it had worn a rut in his mind without leaving any impression in his heart.
Helen looked up from praying, and the glare she delivered would have curdled fresh milk. “I don’t reckon we will! You know well as I do that th’ church is hotter than a oven in summertime, and everbody there will be soaked with sweat by th’ time service is over. They’ll never notice th’ way you smell.” She jabbed a fork into a pork chop with a finality that let him realize that he was pinned just as neatly as that piece of last winter’s fattening hog.
They finished the meal in record time, and Walter, true to Helen’s word, found himself in their old truck by a quarter to seven. The truck had been brand new when he had bought it six years before, paid for by his son’s insurance money. God bless the boy for making his daddy his beneficiary! And Walter always kept up the maintenance on it - he figured that even a brand-new 1952 Ford truck couldn’t run any better than his, especially since he’d broken it in like a good pair of shoes.
The Reverend Thompson was indeed a wildcat behind the pulpit, whipping the entire congregation into a sweaty lather. Even Walter found himself down at the altar that night, repenting his sins and praying for strength. The service broke up about 9:30, after everybody’s emotions and energies were spent. Walter and Helen left the weedy church parking lot, to make the drive down Highway 411 toward home.
As they drove south over Pine Log Creek, they saw someone walking along the side of the road. The person must have noticed his shadow in front of himself, because he spun around and stuck out a thumb. Helen murmured, “Oh, lordy, lordy!” Walter slowed the truck to a stop beside the young man, whose face was cocoa-brown in hue.
“Whatcha doin, boy?” Walter asked him.
The young black man knew his position in the hierarchy of things. He whipped off his hat, crushing it in his hands, and stood with his head slightly bowed. His flour sack of belongings hung over his shoulder. “Suh, Ah’m jus’ headed South. Got relatives down in Savannah, an’ Ah’m goin’ down there to see ‘bout a job.”
“You lookin’ for work, then? Know anything about farmin’?” Walter asked.
The young man looked hopeful. “Well, suh, Ah worked on farms most of my life! Dairy farms, chicken farms, cotton farms… all kinda farms! Yassuh, Ah, know farmin’.”
Helen was muttering over on her side of the truck, the seat springs squeaking as she shifted herself from side to side.
Walter ignored her. “You think you could work for me, then? I need help. Getting’ sorta old, and it’s hard to do some things ‘round the farm when you’re old.”
The young black man looked at the much older white one in the truck. “How much you pay, suh?”
“Dollar-fifty a day, plus three meals, and you get to sleep in the barn.” His eyebrows raised. “But you gotta earn that money, boy! No shirkin’, no lollygaggin’ around, or I dock your pay!”
The hitchhiker didn’t hesitate. “Yas, Suh! Ah’ll sho nuff work fo’ you - least fo’ a couple months. Mah kinfolk down in Savannah, dey ain't spectin' me, nohow.”
“Jump in th’ back, then,” Walter offered generously, and his new farm help readily did so. As they rolled down the asphalt, Walter refused to look at Helen, though he couldn’t help but hear her muttering and occasional prayers.
They pulled into the farm road, and bumped along it for almost half a mile before pulling up before the old farmhouse and barn. The young man in back jumped out, looking around eagerly, and Walter pointed him to the barn.
“You make sure you get up when that rooster crows now, boy! We got some long days ahead of us.” Walter headed into the house, followed by Helen, then turned around. “Hey, boy! What’s your name, anyhow?”
“Randall Thibodeau, suh, but folks call me Bluetick cause Ah can bay jus’ like a hound.” And he raised his face to the sky to make good his boast. Walter had to admit, he had never heard anything that sounded as much like a hound dog, even a real hound dog.
“Alright, then, Bluetick. Tomorrow mornin', bright and early.”
The next day, Bluetick knocked at the door to the kitchen, and was rewarded with two biscuits that had fried fatback slipped into them, and a scalding-hot cup of coffee. He sat on the back steps and wolfed the biscuits down, and drank the coffee as soon as he was able. But before he was finished, Walter came out of the kitchen door, adjusting his overall suspenders.
“We got to hoe that beanfield back there this mornin’, then cultivate th’ corn. If we can finish that, we gotta chop cotton ‘til dark.” He looked at the young man. “Missus Shelton will bring us somethin’ to eat ‘round about noon.” Without further preamble, Walter headed for the barn, followed by Bluetick.
As they rid the beanfield of weeds, Bluetick began to hum, and once in a while a murmured word would slip out. It was obvious he wanted to sing, but wasn’t sure if it was allowed. Shortly, Walter went to the edge of the field to get a drink from a jug of water, and Bluetick began singing in a low, musical voice. The strokes of his hoe fell naturally in with the rhythm of the song.
In a little while, he was startled by Walter. “Whatinell you singin’, boy? That ain’t English!”
Startled, Bluetick whirled around, ducking his head respectfully. “Naw suh, it ain’t. It’s Creole - sorta like French an’ other lang’ges all mixed up togethuh. Mah momma taught me. She was from Haiti, and they all spoke Creole.”
Walter just stared at him. “Hmmmph! Well, I reckon it don’t hurt none. Looks like singin’ helps you work, by the hoein’ you got done. You go ‘head and sing, boy - just not too loud!” He picked up his own hoe. “Oh, and don’t sing none of that Creole ‘round the Missus. It’d make her nervous.”
“Naw, suh - won’t sing it none ‘round Missus Shelton.” The young man looked longingly at the water jug at the side of the field, but in a few seconds turned and resumed hoeing, singing in a low voice.
That night, Bluetick got a reasonable supper from the silent Missus Shelton, thanked her profusely, and retired to the barn to eat it. After he finished the meal, he made a little offering of tobacco to his Orisha, covering it for the night when he finished. Then he stretched out on the hay with an old quilt they had given him, and slept.
The next day was much like the previous, with the exception of Walter encouraging Bluetick to sing a little louder, so he could hear it. The words were strange, but the melody was contagious, and Walter found himself working to the rhythm of the music.
They finished all the hoeing of corn and beans, and most of the cotton chopping by late Saturday. They stood at the far northern edge of Walter’s property, the barn and house 400 yards or more away. As Bluetick looked around, wiping the sweat from his face, he noticed something unusual.
“Mistuh Shelton, what’s all them humps ‘round th’ edge of th’ propitty?” The younger man pointed to a place about fifty feet away, where a series of small raised areas, roughly ten feet apart, ranged down the edge of the woods that adjoined the field. Some of them had thick layers of grass growing on them; others were less overgrown.
Walter sighed. “That’s where I bury th’ garbage when it gets to be too much, boy. I dig a hole, then dump th’ garbage in it, cover it up. Makes things neater, th’ Missus says.”
Bluetick regarded the humps for a few moments, then nodded. “Yassuh, makes a lot of sense, suh.” He swung his eyes along the row of grassy mounds. “Looks like they go most th’ way ‘round th’ farm, suh!” But Walter didn’t say anything more.
They headed back toward the house and the waiting supper. “Suh,” Bluetick ventured, “when does you pay yo hands?”
Walter walked on ahead of him in silence for a while. But soon he answered, “Bluetick, since you get your meals free and a place to sleep, and you cain’t really get into town from here, why you worried ‘bout when you gettin’ paid, anyways?”
“Well, suh, Ah was hopin’ to send some money on to my folks down in Savannah, and let ‘em know Ah was gonna be comin’ down later in th’ summer.” He smiled. “Ah figger sendin’ some money down fust make it harder fo them to say ‘We got no place fo you!’”
Walter laughed then. “I reckon that would help. Wouldn’t it be a heap better to send more, though?”
“Well, yassuh, Ah guess it would. Why, suh?”
“I usually pay my hands once a month, boy, and at six days a week, that comes to 'bout thutty-seven, thutty-eight dollars. Would you want to send down what you got comin’ to you now, about six dollars, or would you rather send down more?” Walter plodded on toward the house, now much closer.
As they reached the spottily-grassed yard behind the house, Bluetick spoke. “Suh, Ah reckon Ah don’t wanna send it all down, but it sho’ would be better to send mo’, and dat's a fact! Yassuh, Ah’ll take my wages at th’ end of th’ month.”
Walter nodded. “Fine, then. You’ll be paid off at th’ end of th’ month.”
July grew hotter as each day passed. Bluetick begged an old Coke bottle from Mrs. Shelton, and filled it at the pump each morning, but it was usually empty before noon. He tied an old white shirt around his head to protect himself from the heat, and he sang the Creole songs his mother had taught him as he labored.
The last day of July rolled around. It was Thursday afternoon, and they had just finished lunch. Mrs. Shelton had silently packed up her basket and gone back to the house.
“Well, boy, reckon I just got one more chore for you before I pay you off for this here month. We gotta bury the garbage again, so you to go to the barn and get one of them long-handled shovels. Then, go out to the end of this field, near th’ old hickory there,” and he pointed, “and dig a nice, big hole. Make it ‘bout five feet long, and three feet deep.”
“Must got a powerful lot of garbage, suh! Dat’s a big hole!” Bluetick smiled as he said this.
Walter smiled, too, but there was no humor in it. “Got a whole month’s worth, boy. Now go and get that hole dug, and I’ll be up there to bury the garbage in a couple of hours. It’ll likely take you that long, ‘cause it’s purty rocky up there.”
Bluetick worked at the garbage hole for almost three hours, in reality, and it was getting dark as he finished. He heard the sound of a rolling, bumping wheel, and turned to see Walter rolling a wheelbarrow with a large towsack in it, apparently full of a month’s worth of garbage.
Walter stopped a few feet away from the hole, and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Got ‘er finished, boy?” he asked.
“Yassuh, all dug.” He stood leaning on the shovel, sweat pouring down his face and making muddy traceries on his once-white shirt.
Walter stepped over to him. “Well, get that sack outta the wheelbarrow, boy, and let’s get this done. It’s gettin’ late!”
Bluetick handed Walter the shovel and stepped over to the wheelbarrow. He leaned over to grasp the towsack, and fell forward into the wheelbarrow, stunned. Walter raised the shovel and swung down again, this time hearing the crack of a broken skull. Satisfied, he nodded, dropped the shovel, then grasped the wheelbarrow and, grunting, pushed it closer to the open hole.
Walter grabbed Bluetick by the shoulders, and dragged him off the wheelbarrow, tumbling him into the grave the young man had been digging for himself all afternoon. There was a look of surprise on Bluetick’s face, but no awareness, as Walter began methodically shoveling dirt over his latest farm help. The rocky red soil covered Bluetick’s open eyes, and filled his partially open mouth, sticking to the blood that had trickled from the young man’s nostrils.
Walter muttered to himself as he worked. “Damn niggers… always wantin’ to get paid… bleed a man dry, they will… bleed him dry.”
Finally, Walter finished filling the grave, patting the soil neatly into a smooth mound with the back of the shovel, as he always did. He placed the shovel on the wheelbarrow and headed back to the barn.
That night, Walter didn’t sleep well. For some reason, he kept hearing dogs howling all night long. Several times he awakened, shivering, and went to the window with his shotgun, determined to kill the animal that was keeping him up all night, but he never saw it. He only heard it - a long, mournful howl, over and over. Somebody’s lost hound, he figured.
The next morning, he was hard to get out of bed, and lingered over breakfast much longer than usual. Helen looked at him suspiciously.
“What’s th’ matter, Walter? You sick?”
Walter moodily sipped his coffee. “No, not sick, just tired. Some damn hound dog kept me awake all night long, bayin’ at the moon or at ‘possums or somethin’.”
Helen frowned. “I didn’t hear nothin’ all night long. Slept like a log.”
“Well, that don’t mean I didn’t hear it! You never hear nothin’ once you get to sleep nohow!” Walter pushed his chair back from the table. “I’m going out to th’ south field. I’ll come back here for lunch - don’t worry ‘bout bringin’ it out.”
Walter retrieved a hoe from the barn and made his way down to the south field. He started hoeing the weeds from between the rows of peas, and as he worked he found himself humming the music Bluetick had always sung. He shook his head angrily and waved one hand around his ear, like a wasp was flying around him, and stopped the humming. But as the morning wore on, he began humming several more times, and each time he stopped himself with a shake of his head and a curse.
At noon he trudged back to the barn, and placed the hoe just inside the door. As he looked into the haymow, he saw the quilt where Bluetick had slept, and decided he should collect it. A good washing would get the stink out of it, he reckoned, and no sense in wasting a good quilt.
As he picked up the quilt, Bluetick’s small bag of belongings fell out of one fold of it. He picked up the bag and searched it with interest. Maybe the rascal had some money, he thought. You never know what these niggers might do. But all he found were some ragged clothes, a bag of loose tobacco and a piece of paper with a name and address in Savannah written on it. “Josephine Labordeaux,” he muttered. “Hunh!”
On an old crate near where the boy slept, Walter saw something with a green and black cloth draped over it. He frowned. That hadn't been there before. He removed the cloth and stood puzzled by the thing he saw.
It was a little statue of a man swinging a large knife, with a dog sitting by his feet and looking up at him. Though the statue was black everywhere else, the face of the little statue was brightly painted and seemed to pulse with color. In front of the statue, in a peanut-butter jar lid, was a pile of tobacco that had what looked like dried reddish-brown paint dripped on it. He picked up the statue. Lordy, it was heavy! Must be made outta iron or lead, he thought.
On the front of the base of the little statue was the single word “Ogun” written in white paint. Unaccountably, Walter shivered, and wrapped the thing up in the green and black cloth, along with the tobacco and jar lid. He stuffed everything into the sack, and went inside for lunch.
Helen had fixed fried chicken, biscuits and green beans for lunch, but Walter couldn’t seem to work up an appetite. He kept seeing the little iron statue, and the word “Ogun”. Where had he heard that before?
Then, suddenly, Walter pounded both his fists on the table, making the plates and cutlery bounce. Helen was over by the sink, and she let out a little screech, then rounded on him. “What the world you doin’, scarin’ me like that? You know my nerves ain’t no good!” She stood panting, the dishcloth in her hand pressed to the center of her bosom.
But Walter wasn’t listening to her. He had just remembered where he had heard that word, Ogun. It was one of the words to the songs Bluetick had sung so often. Why, he had been singing about that man with the knife, the dog and the painted face!
Walter left the rest of his chicken on his plate, and went out the door without another word to Helen. She stood with her mouth open for a while, then shook her head and finished cleaning up the kitchen.
Walter grabbed his shovel, and the little bag of his late employee’s belongings, and headed over toward the place he had buried Bluetick.
When he arrived, Walter just stood for a little while looking at the mound of earth. He was almost afraid of it, and he didn’t know why. “No dead nigger can hurt you, Walter,” he told himself aloud several times. But even with that, it was a few minutes before he was able to do what he intended.
With great care, Walter dug out a hole in the center of the piled earth. For some reason, even though it was a hot day, he felt cold, and shivered several times. Finally, he had reached as deep as he dared to dig. He turned and picked up the bag, taking the cloth-wrapped figurine from within it. Without unwrapping it, he dropped it into the hole.
Turning, Walter picked up the shovel and began filling in the hole. He watched as the red Georgia clay covered the black figure, and hid it from view. He covered it thoroughly, even going so far as digging up several more shovels full of earth from nearby to spread over the entire mound. He started to pat it as he usually did, but stopped. He turned jerkily away, picked up the bag with Bluetick’s remaining things, and headed back to the house.
Once there, he went into the kitchen and saw that Helen was occupied elsewhere. He opened the front of the wood-fired cookstove. There were plenty of glowing coals there from lunch, and he tossed the bag in. The old, dry cotton sacking caught quickly, and within minutes the sack and all it contained were completely consumed. “There, you young bastard!” he muttered.
“Who you talkin’ to, Walter?” his wife asked from the doorway, and he almost jumped out of his overalls.
“Nobody, woman! Nobody! Mind your own business,” he said in an aggrieved and angry tone, and walked out of the kitchen, leaving her sputtering in his wake.
Walter wasn’t normally a heavy-drinking man. Helen wouldn’t have stood for it. But he always kept a jar or two of Charlie Carson’s best ‘shine hidden under a loose board in the corncrib. Right now, he figured he needed to open one of those jars.
For the rest of the afternoon, Walter sat in the back of the corncrib. He worked his way through the first jar of moonshine, and then started on the second one. About one-third of the way through it, he passed out. When supper was ready, Helen called and called, but Walter was snoring drunk, and couldn’t hear her. She walked out to the barn, then the outhouse, and finally to the corncrib. When she saw Walter passed out in the cornshucks with one empty quart jar between his legs and another one partly empty by his hand, she snorted in disgust and went back in to eat alone. He could fix himself something to eat when he woke up, if he wanted!
The evening darkened. Treefrogs began their serenade, along with the crickets. Helen listened to the radio for a little while, sat and read her Bible, prayed, and went to bed.
Much later, a cotton-mouthed and fuzzy-headed Walter was awakened by the sound of a dog howling loudly. He jumped to his feet, or tried to, stumbling on old corncobs and kicking over the remaining jar of moonshine to trickle down between the floorboards. Walter cursed, grabbing at his throbbing head, while the hound outside the corncrib continued to bay as though treeing a raccoon.
“Crazy dog,” Walter muttered ferociously. “I’ll get rid of it now, by thunder!” He grabbed up a pitchfork laying across the corn, and rushed out the door, into the moonlight. The full moon was high in the sky, and Walter raced unsteadily around the corncrib, searching for the hound. But he couldn’t find it. He continued to hear it’s baying, but he never managed to lay eyes on it. Suddenly, it stopped.
“Ah-huh… scared you, you mangy hound!” He flourished the pitchfork like a demented devil, and did a little dance in the dusty barnyard, calling out “Scared you! Scared you!” as he pranced. A cloud passed over the moon, and a faint sound came to Walter’s ears. At first he was too involved in his victory dance to pay it much attention, but he finally slowed to a stop and listened.
Walter’s eyes opened wide. His mouth worked, and his adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Holy God,” he croaked dryly. “It’s Bluetick, singin’.” Indeed, across the field, from the direction of the old hickory tree, he could faintly hear the sound of his late employee singing the song about Ogun.
Without thought, clutching the pitchfork across his chest, he started toward the sound. Occasionally the singing would stop, and in moments the long, sad howl of a hound would rise to the heavens. When this happened, Walter would stop dead still, his eyes locked on the dark shape of the hickory tree, until the singing started again.
Walter trudged through his beans, crushing the plants he and Bluetick had taken such pains to clear of weeds. Soon he came to the edge of the field, and halted. It was then he realized that both the howling and the singing had stopped. Heartened by this, he slowly advanced on Bluetick’s grave.
The earthen mound had been disturbed. Had that dog dug Bluetick’s body up, Walter wondered? With short, uncertain steps, he went to the pile of now disturbed earth. The moonlight poured down onto the grave, empty of all but the little statue.
An exultant howl came from behind Walter, and he swung around, eyes staring and pitchfork at the ready. Then he screamed, took a quick step backward, and fell into the grave. His head struck the small but hard statue of Ogun that lay there, and the little iron knife it brandished pierced the back of his head. Walter twitched for a few seconds, then stopped moving, his open eyes staring up into the night sky. A shadow moved across him, but Walter was past caring.
At daybreak, Helen went to look for Walter with breakfast. She felt bad about locking him out of the house last night, so she had fixed his favorite: salt-cured ham, biscuits, eggs and red-eye gravy. But Walter wasn’t in the corncrib.
Helen called for her husband, and searched once more both the barn and the outhouse, without any luck. Her worry and fear for her husband overcame her fear of “the law” and she called the sheriff’s department. After about an hour, a black-and-white cruiser drove up, red light flashing atop it, and a sweating, red-faced deputy got out.
She told her story in as few words as possible, adding that she was afraid that “some nigger” might have gotten him, since they had given a ride to one a few days before. The deputy nodded, and said he would look around for any evidence of foul play. The deputy read “Official Detective” magazine when he was relaxing, and loved to use the lingo of crime and punishment.
Deputy Fordham walked all through the barn and corn crib, and when he found the empty jars smelling of corn liquor, formed his own opinion of the case. He figured the old geezer had gotten liquored up and had stumbled away somewhere to sleep it off. He began a systematic search of the property, walking the fenceline.
When he was about halfway around the field, he smiled to himself. There he was, passed out. Deputy Fordham could see legs and arms sprawled out and down the sides of a mound of earth. He advanced confidently, readying his normal speech about getting drunk on illegal moonshine. But he stopped a few feet away, and all the color went out of his face.
The front of Walter’s bib overalls was pulled down, and his shirt was open. That in itself wasn’t unusual, since it was a warm morning. But as the deputy drew closer, his eyes began to bulge and his hands to tremble. There was a lot of blood - an awful lot.
The deputy went nearer, and threw up, wasting the hotcakes and coffee he had eaten at Doyal’s Truckstop. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, the deputy shivered in spite of the heat, not believing what he saw. There was a hole in the middle of Walter’s chest, a big hole. And where Walter’s heart ought to be, there looked to be something else. Conquering his nausea, the deputy got down on his knees for a better look. Yes, he was right. Walter’s heart was gone. Instead, sitting in the middle of Walter’s open and bloody ribcage was a little statue of a man holding aloft a knife, with a dog by his feet.
©Tony Burton
Tony Burton is a freelance writer who lives in northwest Georgia with his lovely wife, Lara, and their dog, Buddy. He is the editor of the Crime and Suspense ezine and owns Wolfmont Publishing, a small-press publishing and creative company. His writing background includes over four years as a newspaper columnist, over ten years as a technical writer and curriculum developer, many years as a closet poet and short-story author and finally, two published novellas. When he isn't writing, he is working alongside his wife at creating their new home on 16 acres of mountain land.