Nightjohn Read Online Free PDF

left hand, coiled but ready. His right hand was on the butt of the big pistol in his belt.
    Two blinks, then John moved. He walked to the spring house and put thebracelets on. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and when he turned his back the sun caught the scars from the old whippings. Rippled and ridged.
    There’s nowhere for the whip to hit, I thought. Can’t hit nothing new. No new meat. Stupid. The way my thinking worked.
    But Waller, he wasn’t set for whipping.
    He made one of the field hands to fetch the stump used for chopping the heads off chickens. Sent another hand to the blacksmith lean-to for a wide chisel and a hammer.
    Then he turned to us. All standing, watching. I had moved to mammy but she shook her head. Stood.
    “It is wrong to learn to read.” Waller’s voice loud, bouncing off the buildings. “It is against the
law
for you to read. To know any letters. To know any counting is
wrong
. Punishment, accordingto the
law
, is removal of an extremity.”
    We don’t know all the words. Never heard “extremity” before. But we don’t need to know.
    Waller had two field hands to hold one of John’s feet on the block. He put the chisel to the middle toe and swung the hammer.
    Thunk
.
    The toe came off clean, jumped away from the chisel and fell in the dirt. Blood squirting out, all over the block. John he jerked the foot so hard it knocked one of the field hands over. But quiet, not even a grunt out of him. He didn’t look down either. Just kept staring off into the fields next to the spring house.
    “Other foot.” Waller spit and wiped the chisel off on the stump.
    The two field hands grabbed John’sleft leg. The one next to the wall of the spring house—his name is Robe—he take it slow. Doesn’t move fast so you could see it was bothering him and Waller snaps like a breaking stick.
    “It can be your toe, too. It doesn’t cost more to cut another one off.”
    So Robe he puts John’s foot up there and Waller puts the chisel on it.
    Thunk
.
    This time was not so clean. The foot jerks back and the toe is caught by some skin the chisel missed.
    “Hold it up, damn it.”
    They hold the foot to the block. John he still not making any sounds, but his face is stiff. Like it’s carved out of rock. And there’s sweat pouring off his forehead, his neck, down his chest. He’s soaked.
    Waller cuts the last bit of skin.
    “There. That’ll teach you to messwith things you shouldn’t. Get a rag and some grease on that.”
    He walked back to the white house without looking back and as soon as he was away from us we went to helping.
    The two hands carried John between them to the quarters and I went to mammy.
    “Fetch the salt,” she told me. “Get it in these cuts and ’fore I pass out for God’s sake cover me with something so I ain’t naked before the Lord.”
    So I did. And she swooned some with the pain and went down. And I frotched her dress and helped to put it on her and then helped her back to the quarters because her legs they didn’t work right from hanging and standing all day.
    All the time I’m thinking, be a hell, be a good hell with fire and brimstone and devils cutting skin off backs like mammy says. Be a good goddamn hellwith demons eating at you, pulling your guts out—be the worst hell there is to be.
    And put Waller in it.

SIX
    John he down for three nights.
    Mammy come up right away, but we grease and wrapped John’s feet in rags mammy boiled in the pot for cooking food and he stayed on his back.
    For the first night he was quiet and didn’t say nothing. Just to lay and look at the ceiling, night and day, except to use a can mammy put there for him to use.
    Second night he call me over to where he lay.
    “What?” I ask.
    “H.”
    “What?”
    “That’s the next letter.
H
. It sounds
huhh
, or
hehh
. It’s a funny letter because it doesn’t make any difference how it stands. Goes up, goes down, doesn’t matter. It’s the same.”
    He makes the letter in the