Riding home through the woods by different roads, I rode fast with a pistol in my hand, keeping a sharp eye on the trees. Probably those ridge runners were too smart to bushwhack Edgar Watson, since every man in the south county would know who pulled the trigger, but I could not assume they were that smart when drunk. And drunk they were one autumn day when our paths crossed outside the Collins store at Ichetucknee Springs and Old Man Woodson, swaying in the saddle, pointed his bony finger at my eyes like he was sighting down a musket barrel, reminding me how he aimed to take care of me in his own good time.
Sam Tolen was still more or less my friend, we drank shine and rassled, bird-hunted, went fishing. As for his brothers, Shifty Jim was born two-faced but could act real friendly and Mike was an honest, amiable kid who wanted to believe that his daddy’s threats against me were just fooling. But that morning I informed those boys that the day I decided their old man was serious about his threats-and I gave ’em a hard squint-that day might be his last on earth, maybe theirs, too.
Jim Tolen had cockeyed ears and a rodent mouth way up under high nostrils, and he had a sniffing manner to go with it, as if he were scenting some nice rotted food. Jim sniffed, then spat. “Pa ain’t gone to bother his head about no damn bullshit such as that.” Mikey tried spitting, too, and Fat Sam spat extra noisily to mock his brothers. “Your turn, Edgar,” he told me with a wink. I winked back, then cleared my throat and hawked the contents very near Jim’s boot. He jumped like a mink in slit-eyed fury, pointing at my eyes the way his daddy had; he scowled and left.
Fat Sam said, worried, “This mess ain’t none of my doin, Edgar. Got nothin in the world to do with Sam Frank Tolen.” Nosir, we were bosom friends so far as Sam Frank Tolen was concerned. But from the day I’d backed his daddy down, we could never be true friends and we both knew it.
Not long after that, Woodson’s wife moved out in order to move in with a widower, John Russ, who had four boys of his own. Old Man Woodson slunk on home to Georgia, so the tension around those woods eased up a little. Shifty Jim ran the plantation, making a worse job of it than his old man, and Sammy and I fooled around some as before. I enjoyed teasing him and he enjoyed being teased, that was about it. Never let me forget that the Tolen boys, not Edgar Watson, were running the plantation, and where they were running it, I advised him, was straight into the ground. But mostly I ignored Sam or just played along, convinced it was only a matter of time before Aunt Tab got fed up with these corn rats and begged me to take over. Before that happened, Jim Tolen left for Georgia, scooting out on a shotgun wedding. He left Fat Sammy as the overseer and Sam got drunk, to celebrate. “Too bad you ain’t smarter, Ed. Might get you a good job overseein, same as I got.” I grinned right back. “You never know, Sam, I may get there yet.” And he said, “Over my dead body!” and we both guffawed.
According to age, experience, and bone ability, not to mention the blood ties of kin, his job should have been mine, but on account of my “checkered reputation,” Aunt Tab would not lift her little finger.