Home>>read Lost Man's River free online

Lost Man's River(266)

By:Peter Matthiessen


Sally burst out, “Don’t let him get started! He just bullies everybody with his viciousness. And it isn’t funny just because he’s drunk!”

Speck Daniels turned slowly to confront his daughter, looking her over in the same judicious way in which earlier he had met criticism from the blind man. “Course my daughter here was raised up with her daddy’s views, ain’t that right, Sally? When she was young, some people name of Hyatt come to town and word was going round they might be colored—”

“Oh don’t!” begged Sally, jumping up. “I was only twelve!”

Speck kept nodding. “So this Hyatt girl told her best friend Sally Daniels she was white, and I guess she was, to look at. But my daughter was kind of a mean girl back at that time, talked and thought like her own kind of people. So Sally would not let it go, and them two had a catfight in the school yard every day. Sally called the other girl a dirty nigger, and other kids got into it and then the grown-ups. Finally it was settled, Hyatts was black. Wanted to be white in the worst way but people wouldn’t let ’em. So they got moved acrost the bridge and their kids was sent to the nigra school, and Miss Sally Daniels got most of the credit.”

Her husband put his arm around her but no one could protest, since Sally did not deny that it was true. “That was the way he brought us up!” she cried. Speck contemplated his daughter while she wept. He said, “Them people suffered somethin terrible, y’know. I was almost sorry it was me let on to Sally how they might be niggers.”

Nobody spoke. The blind man, who had propped himself onto his elbows, let himself down again and folded his big hands over his eyes.

“I will say this much, when it come to looks, that Hyatt girl was about as cute as us fellers ever seen in our hometown. Had a couple of state cops hangin around there a good while that wanted to shack up with her, that’s how pretty that girl was, but her people proved to be niggers all the same.

“Black nor white, a person can’t control what he was borned to be. It’s like a dog or cat. A good cat’s a good cat, and a good dog’s a good dog. I like a good dog, but a sorry one is about the sorriest thing there is on God’s good earth. You take a good nigger, it’s the same. But a sorry nigger—”

Whidden said, “Speck? Let’s—”

“All I’m sayin is, God give His own strength to the white race! And the strong ones eat the weak ones and they always did, that’s the way of fish and the way of man and the way of God’s Creation—dog eat dog! And for all us poor fools know about it, this dog-eat-dog might just be the way God wants it! Might be His idea of justice, ever think of that? Keepin His Creation strong? Might be God’s Mercy!”

“I’m ashamed,” Sally murmured, weeping. “Truly ashamed.” She got up and headed for the boat, and her father leaned forward around Andy House to admire her movements. “Ain’t she sweet?” He sighed when he sat back again. “I got another daughter in Miami just as purty, only this girl purely loves her daddy, loves to set on her bad old daddy’s knee.” He winked at Whidden, who looked past him, watching Sally brush her teeth and crawl into her bedroll. Her father nodded in approval, as if she were being a good little girl about her bedtime.

“Speakin of that other daughter, you fellers hear about them black boys that busted in when I was over visitin Miami? When my little grandchild run outside and left the door unlocked while I was layin on the sofa? These two snuck in and when they seen me, they run right over and started in to beatin on me. One straddled me and broke my nose all up while the other was yankin at my pockets, huntin my wallet, and neither of ’em spoke a word the whole time they was there. Money for dope, that’s what the cops told me, but it seemed more like plain old hate to me. Old man that never done a thing to them damn people, and here they’re invadin in broad daylight, just a-beatin on him? Got to be hate! I sure don’t know what’s the matter with that kind, with all our tax money they are gettin free on nigger welfare!

“Had a stray bullet whap into my daughter’s house, fall on the floor, when the cops was runnin dopers there on the back avenues. This is dangerous stuff that’s goin on! Used to be you could leave everythin unlocked, now you have to guard your house twenty-four hours a day. I ain’t so much a religious person, but I think that the Old Man Up There, He’ll have to take and thin some of this out. The world is gettin so wicked, y’know, something has to stop. They talk about old-time desperaders like Ed Watson, but the killin back then ain’t nothin like it is today. See more killed in one week on the news than Watson done away with in a lifetime!