Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

Judging by how tightly she gripped it, Alex guessed it to be full. Ben Roy’s eyes were still on his own cards.
    “Pistol? A nigger don’t need to be carryin’ ’round no pistol.” Wiley George held out his Mason jar to Hettie for a refill.
    “Hettie.” Ben Roy’s voice bounced off the bundles, barrels, and crates in the small back room as the woman stiffened her body. “Don’t pour that fool another drop. I ain’t carryin’ no drunk home to my daughter.” He turned back to Alex. “Niggers carry pistols even when they go to church. Long as he ain’t carryin’ it ’gainst no white man, who the hell cares?”
    “The boy says Welles is after the father of his woman’s baby.” Alex locked eyes with Ben Roy, who had taken a quick glance away from the cards in his hand. “A nigger takin’ a gun to church is one thing, but a crazy nigger with a loaded gun runnin’ ’round the countryside after dark is another. It just might go off against anybody.” Alex held Ben Roy’s gaze.
    “Maybe Welles slipped back in town last fall for a night with his woman. Who’s to say who the baby’s daddy is.” Ben Roy still held his cards clamped to his chest.
    “That nigger needs that gun taken away.” The down county farmer held up his glass for a refill.
    Ben Roy rolled his eyes, and the farmer set his Mason jar on the table only a quarter filled.
    “You gonna be the one to take a loaded gun from a crazy nigger?” Ben Roy turned to spit out the wad of tobacco he’d been chewing, spewing brown specks across the table. “Alex, let’s see yo’ cards.”
    Alex’s throat had gone dry. He couldn’t speak even if he had thought it a good idea. Instead, he laid out his three queens and two tens. He heard Ben Roy’s big intake of breath just as Hettie approached him with the jug in her hand. Alex glanced down at his own almost full Mason jar and nodded her off. Ben Roy threw his cards to the table and pushed the pot toward Alex.
    “You been a lucky bastard tonight.” Ben Roy leveled his eyes at him. “Every man here wants to have that kind of luck this plantin’ season. Put the seed in the ground, hope the rains come and go when they ’sposed to, fight the bugs so they don’t eat yo’ leaves down to nothin’, and pray that the niggers will stay in the fields. That’s the kind of luck every white man wants this time of year. Unless it’s somethin’ powerful bad, ain’t no need to rile ’niggers up with trouble right at the start of the season. A nigger will sit down quicker than he’ll work. Don’t give ’em no excuses.”
    “A nigger runnin’ around the county with a loaded pistol, crazy enough to shoot anything and anybody, white or black, coming across his path…that’s bad business.” Alex looked at the men at the table.
    Hettie, on her way to Ben Roy, slipped on some of the tobacco spittle that had escaped the spittoon. Catching herself, she splashed the liquor mash from the jug across the poker table and onto the deck of cards Ben Roy was shuffling. Almost before Alex could blink, Ben Roy’s arm shot out and backhanded Hettie hard across her new-mother’s nursing breasts. Still clutching the spilling jug, the woman doubled over in pain, one hand at the bodice of her dress.
    “Leave the damn jug and get the hell out of here.” Ben Roy wiped the cards clean on his shirt as Hettie scurried into the main room.
    “I reckon that’s it for me for tonight.” The down county farmer scraped back in his chair. He turned to Alex and almost whispered to him. “If you need me to help out with that uppity nigger after harvest, you come on back to me.”
    “Me, too.” The Thornton cousin gulped down the contents of his Mason jar. “That nigger’s just gonna run around a lot tonight. Get liquored up and find him some other nigger to shoot in the ass. He’ll light out of here by mornin’.”
    “Two or three men tonight to catch this nigger and run him out of Lawnover is all I need. He ain’t nothin’ but trouble for all of us.” Alex swept his eyes between the Thornton kin and Ben Roy.
    Pushing the deck of cards aside, his brother-in-law leaned toward Alex, his elbow on the table, his hand half shielding his mouth.
    “Hettie’s got a tan-skinned cousin come to visit. Not but thirteen, but I reckon she’s trainable. You can help yo’self to her.” Ben Roy may as well have been speaking Geechee to Alex’s ears.
    Why in hell would his brother-in-law think he wanted a