NewSouth

There was as much pride within Janson Sanders as there was in any man in Eason County, though few people saw in him any reason for pride. Pride had no place in patched overalls and calloused hands, in a remade shirt and sunburned skin, or in the mixed blood that showed so clearly in his face and his coloring.

He walked beside his father that gray Saturday morning in late November of 1924, the short, brick-paved downtown section of Main Street in Pine seeming to him choked with traffic and noise such as he was little accustomed to. Black and gawky Model T Fords rattled by, Chevrolets of varying colors, a Packard, an expensive-looking Stutz blatting its horn to get out into traffic--they were all dust covered, red from the Alabama clay, for this was the only paved stretch of road in all of Eason County, other than the short, brick-paved strip of Central Street just in front of the county courthouse in Wylie.

People pushed past Janson and his father on the narrow sidewalk as they made their way from the wagon lot at the far edge of downtown, men in blue serge suits and starched collars, young dandies wearing plus fours and pullover sweaters, Janson meeting the eyes of each who passed with his father's Irish pride and his mother's Cherokee dignity, though his own overalls were faded and patched, and the shirt he wore had once belonged to another man. He knew that many people in the County looked down on him for the Cherokee heritage that showed so clearly in his face and his coloring, in the prominent, high cheekbones and the black, straight hair, but there was no shame in him for the man he was, or the past he was a part of. He was proud, as both his parents were proud, and he had been raised to know there was no man alive any better, or any less, than he--and he met the eyes of each who passed with pride and dignity, and with the independence born of his blood.

His father was talking as they walked along, about the recent town ordinance that restricted horse and mule drawn wagons from Main Street any farther down than the wagon lot at the far edge of downtown, past Abernathy's Feed and Seed and the dry goods store, and about the ugly Model T's and the Chevrolets that crowded the roads enough already without restricting the short strip of downtown for their use alone. Janson listened, though he had heard the same comments many times before, not only from his father, but also from many of the neighboring farmers and churchfolk, and he started to say something in agreement, for he considered motor cars a luxury that he could see little need or use for--but a car horn sounded and drew his attention instead, and he looked toward the traffic to see a girl in a dark cloche hat crossing the narrow street toward them, the girl running slightly to avoid a Packard whose driver honked irritably for the second time as he had to slow for her.

The short skirt of the navy-blue dress she wore covered her knees by only a bare few inches, and, as she stepped up onto the sidewalk out of the way of the motor car, Janson fancied he saw for a moment the top of a rolled stocking, and perhaps even a bit of exposed kneecap below the hem of the skirt--he looked away quickly, and then back again; after all, he was almost seventeen and a half now, and not unwise to the ways of the world, having become a man the year before at the hands of a girl from a neighboring farm, a girl who had known much more than any girl her age ought to have known.

The girl in the cloche hat smiled appreciatively at the look in his eyes as she walked past--as bold as a flapper, he told himself, though he was not really certain how bold a flapper might be, for he had never been close to one in all his life. He found it difficult to even imagine a girl as bold and daring and promiscuous as he had heard city flappers to be, girls drinking liquor and smoking cigarettes, dancing and carrying on. The girl had face paint on, rouge and lipstick and face powder, and her hair was bobbed short beneath the cloche hat, curling in at her cheeks in the style some of the town girls had taken to wearing in the past several years, such girls actually visiting barber shops to have their hair cut just as men did.

He glanced around at her as she walked by, admiring the slender calves incased in silk stockings, the dark seams so straight in back below the short skirt, though he knew she was the sort of girl his mother would say was no lady, for he well knew that ladies did not wear face paint and powder, or bob their hair, or roll their stockings down to their knees.

"Janson, boy--" he heard his father say, a note of reprove in his voice, and he started to turn back to go on about the business that had brought them here into town today, so they could go back home to the land and to the barn roof waiting for repair, to the fall garden that needed hoeing, and the bow basket he had been working on earlier, as well as the scrap cotton still left in the fields waiting to be picked and sold for the money they would have Christmas on this year.

And then he saw the car.

It drove by slowly, the old man staring out through the open side at Janson's father. Janson watched as it slowed even further still, and, after a moment, made a wide U-shaped turn at the far end of Main Street, the other cars there seeming to stop or move out of its way, one driver of a Buick honking his horn loudly before seeming to recognize the car, the driver, and the passenger, then falling silent and inching over to make way for the black, 1915 Cadillac touring car, as did everyone else. They knew that car; everyone in the County knew that car, for, though it was nine years old now, there was not another like it in all of Eason County--and it belonged to Walter Eason.

The car went by, and then pulled over just ahead, in the only empty space among the Model T's and the Buicks and the Chevrolets, blocking the way to a fire plug as it came to a stop and waited there. After a moment, the old man got out and walked up onto the sidewalk to stand waiting for them, his manner as unyielding as the black suit he wore, and the white shirt with its starched and detachable collar.

Walter Eason remained silent as they approached him, his eyes never once seeming to leave the face of the tall man with the graying reddish-brown hair who walked at Janson's side, his own face never changing--just the cold, gray eyes moving at last as they flicked for one moment to Janson, and then back again.

"Mornin', Mr. Eason," Henry Sanders said as they neared him, nodding his head in greeting, but not tipping or removing the battered old hat he wore, as many men would have done in the presence of the powerful old man. Henry Sanders tipped his hat to no man, as his son well knew.

"Good morning, Henry--young man--" The gray eyes moved to Janson again, and Janson nodded. Walter Eason stared at him for a moment longer, and then turned back to his father. "Doing some shopping, Henry? We don't see you and the boy in town too often."

"My wife's birthday's comin' up," Henry Sanders answered, explaining no further, and the old man nodded.

"It's good to see you doing your business in Pine; it's good for all our County people when they do their business here in Eason County," he said, and Janson knew what was coming, as he had known from the moment the car had first begun to slow, and then had come back to stop before them, hearing the words only a moment later; "I hear you sold your cotton out of the County this year, Henry, over in Mason, to Taylors--"

There was a moment's silence, so quickly gone Janson was unsure as to whether it had been or not. "Yes, sir, I recon' I did." There was no tone of apology in Henry Sanders' voice, and none of subservience--he owed Walter Eason nothing, and they both knew that. It had been his crop, grown on his land, with his own seed, and he had sold it where it had brought him the most dollar, though no other of the County farmers sold out of Eason County, though few ever had.

"County farmers usually sell in Eason County," Walter Eason said. "Most men find it pays to do their business at home." There was no threat to the old man's words, just the clear message--Eason County farmers sell in Eason County. There was no room left for compromise.

"Cotton's bringin' a better price over in Mason, an' they're payin' a premium for long staple--I got a mortgage t' pay on my place; I got t' sell where I can get th' most money."

"Money isn't everything, Henry," Walter Eason said quietly, staring at Janson's father.

For a moment Henry Sanders did not speak. "No sir, it sure ain't," he said at last, his words quiet.

Janson stood watching the two men, but neither spoke for what seemed to him to be a very long time as they stood staring at each other. Then he found Walter Eason's gaze on him again.

"The boy takes after his mother, doesn't he?" Eason remarked after a moment, as if no conversation had gone on between the two men as just had. There was appraisal in the look directed on Janson, a summing up he did not altogether like, and he returned the cold stare without looking away, lifting his chin slightly as he met the old man's eyes.

"Yeah, he looks a lot like his ma--" Henry Sanders' hand came to rest on his son's shoulder, just as it had done so many times in the past, though Janson was fully grown now and as tall almost as any man in the Sanders family. Janson could hear the pride in his father's voice, the affection inherent in the words, and he looked up at this man who had given him life more than seventeen years before, seeing in him the pride and dignity and determination of a man who wore faded overalls and a patched and remade shirt--then he looked back to Walter Eason, and he found the old man's gaze now directed at his father as well, something in the gray eyes Janson could not understand.

But his attention was suddenly drawn away, toward the black Cadillac, and the husky young man who had gotten out from behind the wheel of the vehicle. Buddy Eason, the old man's only grandson, stood now beside the car. He was perhaps a year younger than Janson's seventeen and a half years, but broader of build, with a square jaw set into an angry and defiant line below slicked-back, wavy brown hair--Buddy Eason was a bad sort, with a quick temper that could be both violent and unpredictable by what Janson had heard in the years of growing up in the County, though he himself had been lucky enough to have had few dealings with Buddy Eason in that time.

But Buddy Eason was staring at him now, staring at him with a look that became only angrier as Janson returned the stare, Janson lifting his chin and returning the gaze without once looking away. Buddy shifted with almost restless motion, then again, his hands tightening into fists at his sides, his eyes not leaving Janson's face until he heard his name spoken, and then Henry Sanders reply.

"You know my grandson, Buddy, don't you?"

"Yeah, how're you doin', son?" Henry Sanders asked, and Buddy Eason's eyes shifted quickly to him, eyes that were suddenly furious, filled with rage it seemed only because he had been spoken to as he had, had been addressed as "son", and not as "Mr. Buddy" or "Mr. Eason" as Janson knew most of the County folk would have addressed him--then Buddy's dark gray eyes moved back to Janson, and Janson realized suddenly this younger man was waiting now for him to speak, waiting for him to ask after his health, to call him "Mr. Buddy" with the respect Buddy believed himself due as an Eason.

Janson Sanders remained silent and returned his stare.

"I'm sure you'll come to realize before ginning time next year that it's best for a man to do his business at home, Henry," Walter Eason was saying, as if they had never once left the subject, and Janson brought his eyes back to the old man, finding no doubt written there on the almost unlined face. "We'll see you at the gin next year," he said, and then started to turn away.

"Next year's a long way off, Mr. Eason," Henry Sanders said, and the old man turned back for a moment to stare at him. There was something in Walter Eason's eyes that seemed to understand what was being told him, something that for the first time seemed to know the sort of man it was who stood there on the sidewalk before him that day. After a moment, he nodded his head, and said quietly:

"We'll see, Henry. We'll see . . ." He turned and started again toward the black touring car, stepping down off the sidewalk without ever once looking back.

Henry Sanders was a man who owed his livelihood to no other man. It had been a decision he had made, a choice taken in long years past before memory could even serve him. He had come into life over fifty-six years before there in Eason County on sharecropped land his parents had worked for more years than they could count, only the third generation removed from an Ireland of tenanted farms, famine, and starvation. He could remember no time in his life when he had not wanted land that was his own, a home no one could ever take from him, and a crop he would not lose half of each year for use of mules and plow and sometimes pitiful earth. Together with his wife, Nell, he had seen that dream a reality, had made it so, with work and sweat and doing without. Their son had been the first Sanders ever born to his own earth, the first Sanders ever to come into life not owing the land he lived on to another man. They had seen to that.

But as the early months of 1924 had come, it had seemed they might be close to losing the land they had worked so hard to have. Eason County existed in cotton, as did most of Alabama and much of the South. Cotton had brought them through slave times and civil war, through carpetbaggers and Reconstruction and to a South that now stood in mills and villages and company towns. Cotton had helped Henry to buy the land--but now in 1924 Henry could no longer look at a field of cotton without feeling worry. The going price per pound of lint had not been good since the year after the armistice had been signed in 1918 to end the World War, and even the sharp rise in price in '23 had been little felt by the farmers in Eason County. The Easons, as always, seemed to be paying a few cents less per pound of cotton than were any of the cotton merchants buying in the surrounding counties--but Eason County farmers did not sell out of Eason County. They sold their cotton to Walter Eason, as their fathers had done, and their fathers before them, all the way back to the hard years following the war with the North that had ended almost sixty years before. They owed their allegiance to Walter Eason, as fathers and grandfathers long dead had owed allegiance to Walter's father--few men in the small towns and countryside of Eason County could not credit their livelihoods to Walter Eason, either to the cotton mill, ginning operation, or overall factory; the many sharecropped and tenanted farms he owned; or the businesses he operated from the busy, brick-paved downtown sections of Main Street in Pine, or Central Street up in the County seat of Wylie. And even fewer still could come to doubt his power, or his word. Eason County was his county, and the people his people--few men had dared to go up against Walter Eason in Eason County. It was well known those few had quite often lived to regret their courage.

But Henry Sanders had owed Walter Eason nothing. No man had given him the red land he and his son worked behind mule and plow, the crop they sweated and prayed over. And no one would take it from them now. There was a mortgage to pay on the farm, the credit run at the store, a wife and seventeen-year-old son to see through the winter months ahead. To sell at Eason prices this year would have meant losing the land, losing what he had worked so long to have, losing what he had worked so long to give his son--if Henry Sanders owed anything, he owed his son the pride of walking his own earth; the dream of owning land, and a crop that was all his own; of never being a man worked and owned and sweated into old age by a man such as Walter Eason. And that was a debt Henry Sanders was willing to pay, a debt that had come from generations long past, and dreams that would never die, dreams that were as much a part of his son Janson as life or breath or pride would ever be.

Janson had been reared on those dreams, but, as that cold winter of 1924-25 passed, and the spring months of plowing the red earth and planting the cotton, he knew those dreams were no less in danger than they had been the year before. Cotton prices were falling, and production was up. Many farmers were no longer even getting enough per pound of lint to cover the costs of growing their crops. There would be no more choice this year than there had been the last; the cotton would have to sold out of the County if they were to hold onto the land.

The fields were lush and green by the time the hot summer weeks of laying by came in 1925, the long, curving rows thick with green cotton plants, leaving little to be done there now but wait. Soon enough the bolls would burst open and the back-breaking work of picking the cotton would begin--until then there were only chores to be done at the house, the garden to tend, the barn to sweep out, or work that could be done for a neighboring farmer at a day's small wage. Janson soon became restless, bored in those days, unaccustomed to having time on his hands with little or no work that had to be done.

He visited with his kin, walked the green fields just as his pa did, and courted several of the girls from church, but there never seemed enough to do in the days to help make the time pass. He cleared land with his Uncle Wayne and his gran'pa, and wove baskets for sale from white oak splits he prepared himself--bow baskets, egg baskets, cotton baskets; and bottomed chairs for hire--but still laying by that year seemed to pass more slowly than had any other he could ever remember. He knew that soon enough the green fields would turn white with cotton, and that the long hours of dragging a pick sack behind him down the never-ending rows would begin--and also would begin the trouble with Walter Eason, for, sometime between now and the time the cotton was sold in the fall, something would have to happen, something aimed toward preventing them from selling the crop out of the County. Something --one farmer's rebellion might bring two, two might bring three, until the system that had been in operation in the County since the hard years following the War Between the States might finally come to an end. And Walter Eason could never allow that.

So far there had been few incidents, things for which there was no explanation, but things behind which Janson could see clear meaning--windows broken out at the front of the house, sending shards of broken glass into the old sofa and braided rugs there; several of his pa's hunting dogs shot through the head and left; a brush fire set near the front of the house. Warnings alone--but the real struggle lay ahead in the fall when the time came again for them to sell out of Eason County. And that was still months away.

On a hot Saturday morning toward the end of laying by that year, Janson started over the eight-mile walk toward town, unable to find anything more useful to put his mind or his hands to. It was a warm morning, the hot July sun already baking down on his shoulders through his faded workshirt and the crossed galluses of his overalls as he turned off North Ridge Road and onto the road toward Pine. There would be a long walk ahead of him, and a hot one, but it was a walk he had made many times in the past, and in weather even hotter than the weather of this day. Besides, it was likely someone would stop to offer him a ride before he had gone too far a distance, some passing farmer or one of the churchfolk, for someone almost always did.

There was a little money in his pocket from hired work he had done the day before, and, after several hours debate with himself over the waste, he had decided to treat himself to a phosphate at the soda fountain in the drugstore, and then to some time spent watching girls pass along the street for a while. He would have liked to have gone to the picture show as well, to see the moving picture people he heard so much talk about: Clara Bow, whose photograph he had seen once on the front of a moving picture magazine in the drugstore, Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin, John Barrymore, Theda Bara; but he knew he would not go. He had been to a movie show only once in his life, on a day he had told his parents he was going elsewhere, only to go to the picture show in town instead. When his mother had found out, his pa had taken him out behind the smokehouse--but Janson had not gotten a whipping that day, or ever again since. His pa had told him he was a man now, and that it was time he learn to choose right from wrong on his own--Janson had never again gone to see a picture show after that, though he still could not see why it was supposed to be wrong, even if the preacher did say it was; any more than he could see why it was supposed to be wrong for a man to curse, if the occasion warranted it; or to drink corn liquor, even if Prohibition had made liquor illegal since five years back; or to dally with a girl who was not a lady, so long as he did not have a wife at home to take care of the things any man needed.

He was thinking on that subject as he walked toward town that morning, of a wife, and of how nice it would be if there were a girl in his bed at night. He was a man now, eighteen years old, with the needs of any man. He knew plenty of nice girls--and a man only married a nice girl--plenty of girls who were pretty, with nice figures and long hair, girls who had been raised to be ladies, who would not let any man see their bare knees until they were married, and then only in the privacy of a bedroom with the door closed behind them, and then maybe only if he was very lucky and all the lamps were blown out. His pa had said ladies did not know much about the sort of things that happened between men and women, and that a man had to be understanding with the girl he married, for ladies were delicate in such matters--there were good girls and there were bad girls, and a man only married a good girl. He was not really supposed to have fun with a bad girl before then, or ever--Janson knew plenty of good girls, and a few bad ones, but he had not found one he could really think of himself being married to.

There was the sound of a motor car coming along the road behind him, headed in the direction of Pine, but Janson paid little attention to it as it drew near. It seemed to have an expensive sound to it, unlike the rattly Model T Fords and the Chevrolets that most people who could afford cars drove, sounding nothing like the sort of car that would stop to give someone like him a ride, someone in patched overalls, and with feet dirty from the walk over the red clay roads--but the car did stop, slowing and then coming to a halt beside him, the door opening after a moment, and a female voice calling out: "Hey, honey, you want a lift or not?" as he continued to walk on.

Janson stopped and turned back, staring with surprise as he saw the car, and then the driver.

Lecia Mae Eason, the oldest of Walter Eason's two granddaughters, sat staring at him from behind the wheel of the black Cadillac touring car, one eyebrow raised in question. She was perhaps at least a few years older than his eighteen years, with a well-known reputation in the County for being "fast," as Janson's mother would have called her--and in that moment she looked to Janson as he thought a "fast" woman would look. Her brown hair was bobbed short in the current style, her face painted with lipstick, powder and rouge. She was not exactly pretty, with the same square jaw and self-possessed attitude that her brother, Buddy Eason, often wore, but she was pleasant enough to look at, and she seemed almost to have an air of sexuality about her that Janson fancied he could sense even over the distance.

Her eyes seemed to move over him for a moment through the windshield of the Cadillac, her eyebrow raising again, this time in irritation. "Well?"

"Ma'am," he asked, unsure.

"You want a lift or not?" she asked, her voice rising with impatience.

He never knew later why it was he said yes--or perhaps he did, finding himself seated beside her in the touring car as it headed on toward Pine. He looked around the interior of the Cadillac with curiosity, never once in his life having thought to be inside such a fancy machine--then the girl took his attention away, or the woman, he told himself, for she looked perhaps even a few years older now that he was sitting beside her. She kept glancing at him, and he tried not to stare at her too openly, for her knees were actually visible below the edge of her skirt, her silk stockings rolled right down to them, and, even as he tried not to stare, he knew she noticed, and that she did not seem to mind.

"You like this car?" she asked a moment later, after having secured his name and where it was he was headed.

"Yeah, it's nice."

"It's ten years old now, you know. It's not mine; it belongs to the Old Man, my grandfather, but I had to borrow it for the day. Had a new Packard myself, that is until I got a bit blotto and ran it into a tree a few weeks back--"

Janson stared at her for a moment, but did not respond, not knowing what to say. He had never before met a woman who drank, much less one who admitted to having done so.

After a moment, she reached and took up a paper sack from the seat between them, pulling down on the top of it with a thumb to reveal the shiny cap of a hip flask. "You want a drink, honey?" she asked, holding the flask out toward him.

"No, ma'am--" he said, staring at her openly now. He had tried corn liquor several times in his life, as had any other young man his age in the County, but had never really acquired a taste for it--besides, she was a woman, even if she was not a lady, and a man never drank in front of a woman, not even a woman who herself might drink.

"You sure?" she asked, bracing the flask between her exposed knees and unscrewing the cap. She tilted it up for a moment, the car almost going off the road as she swallowed a mouthful and then offered it to him again. "It's good gin, smuggled in off a rumrunner, not any of this bathtub swill--"

"Yes, ma'am, I'm sure--"

"Stop calling me ma'am," she snapped. "I'm not any older than you are--" It was a lie, and they both knew it. "My name's Lecia Mae--"

He looked at her for a moment, surprised at her words, reminding himself again who she was. "Yes, ma'am--I mean, Lecia Mae."

"Good--" She smiled, glancing at him again. After a moment she asked: "How old are you, anyway?"

"I'm eighteen."

"Eighteen--" she said, but said nothing more.

Silence fell between them for a time, and she seemed again to appraise him with a side-long glance. He felt that look, and he wondered again if she was thinking the same thing he was thinking--if women, even "fast" women, thought such things.

"You in any particular hurry to get anywhere?" she asked after a moment.

"No, ma'am, not really."

"Good--" she said, and glanced his way again. He felt the gray eyes moving over him, and he understood. "Good--"