Child of God Read Online Free PDF Page A

Parsons eh?
    He’s got a couple of good dogs.
    O yeah. He always has the best dogs. I remember a dog he had one time named Suzie he said was a hellatious bird dog. He let her out of the trunk and I looked at her and I said: I don’t believe Suzie’s feelin too good. He looked at her and felt her nose and all. Said she looked all right to him. I told him, said: I just don’t believe she’s real well today. We set out and hunted all afternoon and killed one bird. Started walk-in back to the car and he says to me, Bill says: You know, it’s funny you noticin old Suzie was not feelin good today. The way you spotted it. I said: Well, Suzie was sick today. He said yes, she was. I said: Suzie was sick yesterday. Suzie has always been sick. Suzie will always be sick. Suzie is a sick dog.

H E WATCHED THE SHERIFF stop out on the road a quarter mile away and he watched him ford the sheer wall of dried briers and weeds at the edge of the road and come on with arms and elbows aloft, treading down the brush. When he got to the house his pressed and tailored chinos were dusty and wilted and he was covered with dead beggarlice and burrs and he was not happy.
    Ballard stood on the porch.
    Let’s go, said the sheriff.
    Where to?
    You better get your ass down off that porch.
    Ballard spat and unleaned himself from the porch-post. You got it all, he said. He came down the steps, his hands in the rear pockets of his jeans.
    Man of leisure like yourself, the sheriff said. You oughtn’t to mind helpin us workers unscramble a little misunderstandin. This way, mister.
    This way, said Ballard. They’s a path if you don’t know it.

B ALLARD IN A VARNISHED oak swivelchair. HE leans back. The door is pebble-grain glass. Shadows loom upon it. The door opens. A deputy comes in and turns around. There is a woman behind him. When she sees Ballard she starts to laugh. Ballard is craning his neck to see her. She comes through the door and stands looking at him. He looks down at his knee. He begins to scratch his knee.
    The sheriff got up from his desk. Shut the door, Cotton.
    This son of a bitch here, the woman said, pointing at Ballard. Where the hell did you find him at?
    Is he not the one?
    Well. Yes. He’s the one, the one … It’s them other two sons of bitches I want jailed. This son of a bitch here … She threw up her hands in disgust.
    Ballard scuffed one heel along the floor. I ain’t done nothin, he said.
    Did you want to make a charge against this man or not?
    Hell yes I do.
    What did you want to charge him with?
    Rape, by god.
    Ballard laughed woodenly.
    Salt and battery too, you son of a bitch.
    She ain’t nothin but a goddamned old whore.
    The old whore slapped Ballard’s mouth. Ballard came up from the swivelchair and began to choke her. She brought her knee up into his groin. They grappled. They fell backward upsetting a tin wastebasket. A halltree toppled with its load of coats. The sheriff’s deputy seized Ballard by the collar. Ballard wheeled. The woman was screaming. The three of them crashed to the floor.
    The deputy jerked Ballard’s arm up behind him. He was livid.
    You goddamned bitch, Ballard said.
    Get her, the sheriff said. Get …
    The deputy had one knee in the small of Ballard’s back. The woman had risen. She cocked her elbows and drew back her foot and kicked Ballard in the side of the head.
    Here now, said the deputy. She kicked again. He grabbed her foot and she sat down in the floor. Goddamn it Sheriff, he said, get her or him one, will ye?
    You sons of bitches, said Ballard. He was almost crying. Goddamn all of ye.
    Bet me, said the woman. I’ll kick his goddamned cods off. The son of a bitch.

N INE DAYS AND NIGHTS in the Sevier County jail. Whitebeans with fatback and boiled greens and baloney sandwiches on light-bread.Ballard thought the fare not bad. He even liked the coffee.
    They had a nigger in the cell opposite and the nigger used to sing all the time. He was being held on a fugitive warrant.