“There’s one more place I need to show you, Ben,” he said. “Then I reckon we’ll be ready to write an official report for Mr. President.”

As his mule started off, I saw Abraham wince in pain and try to hide it. He saw that I had noticed and forced a smile.

“Don’t worry about me, Mr. Corbett,” he said. “I’m old, but I ain’t even close to dyin’ yet.”

But as he turned away and the smile dropped from his face like a mask, I realized that Abraham was a very old man, and probably a sick man as well. His face had the hidden desperation of someone hanging on for dear life.

Or maybe just to make this report to the president.

Chapter 51

I SUPPOSE ABRAHAM WAS WISE to save the worst for last. We rode the mules through a peach orchard south of the Chip-ley plantation, making a roundabout circle in the general direction of town. The air was heavy with the smell of rotting fruit. For some reason no one was picking these peaches.

At the end of the orchard we emerged into a peaceful wooded glen. At the far side stood two huge old trees. From the fruit dotting the floor of the glen, I made out that these were black cherry trees; we had a nice specimen growing in back of the house the whole time I was growing up.

From the tree on the right hung a black man. At least, I think it was a man. It was mostly unrecognizable. Flies buzzed around it. It had been there a while.

I didn’t want to go closer, but I found myself moving there as if my legs were doing all the thinking for my body. I could see that the man had been young. He was caked with blood, spit, snot, mud, and shit. His head was distended, swollen from the pressure of hanging. His lips were swollen too, like balloons about to pop.

I began to gag and I turned away. I fell to one knee and heaved.

“Go ahead, Ben,” Abraham said. “It’s good to be sick, to be able to get rid of it like that. I wish I could. I guess I’m just gettin’ too used to seein’ it. It’s a bad thing to get used to.”

I took out my handkerchief and wiped the edges of my mouth. The wave of nausea was still sweeping over me.

“That’s Jimmy Patton up there,” he said.

“What happened to him?”

“He worked over at the gin for Mr. Purneau,” Abraham said. “Last Saturday he got drunk like he always does after he gets his pay. He was walkin’ home and somehow he got hold of a gun. Don’t know if he brung it with him, I never knowed Jimmy to carry a gun. Anyway he popped it off right there a couple of times on Commerce Street, down at the end there by the depot. He didn’t hit anybody, but a couple of men saw him. They brought him here.”

“We can’t leave him up there,” I said.

“Well sir, we have to,” said Abraham.

“Why is that?”

“Because they told the people came to cut Jimmy down they wanted him left here as a warning for the others.”

“You afraid to cut him down, Abraham? This man needs to be buried.”

“We got no way to carry him.”

“Across the mule’s back,” I said. “I can walk it, or I can ride with you.”

“I’m an old man, Mr. Corbett. I can’t climb that tree.”

“Well, I can, but I don’t have a knife,” I said.

Abraham produced an excellent bowie knife with a bone handle.

It was only when I was directly under Jimmy Patton’s body that I saw someone had severed his fingers and toes. Where his digits should have been there were bloody stumps.

I made quick work of climbing the cherry tree.

“Yes, sir,” Abraham said. “Sometime they cut off pieces. To take for souvenirs. And sometimes they sell ’em, you know. At the general store. At the barber shop. Ten cent for a nigger toe. Twenty-five cent for a nigger thumb.”

I waved my hand at the ugly explosion of blood on the front of Jimmy Patton’s trousers.

“That’s right,” said Abraham. “Sometimes they don’t stop at fingers and toes.”

I felt light-headed and nauseated again. “Just-just stop talking for a minute, would you, Abraham?”

I sawed at the rope with a knife for what seemed like an hour. Jimmy Patton finally fell to the ground with a sickening thud.

Somehow I managed to climb down that tree. Somehow I got the Indian blanket out from under Abraham’s saddle and wrapped it around the dead man. With Abraham’s help I got Jimmy onto the mule. His body was so stiff from rigor mortis that I had to balance him just so, like a pine log.

“We better get out of here,” Abraham said. “Somebody watching us for sure.”

“Where? I don’t see anybody.”

“I don’t see ’em,” he said, “but I know they watching us, just the same.”

We made it back through the peach orchard, onto the road, all the way back to town without meeting a soul. I walked the mule by its rope, hoping it would help to be out front. But there was nowhere to walk without breathing in the smell of Jimmy Patton’s decomposing flesh, the coppery smell of his blood.

“I’m ready to write that report, Abraham,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “I imagine you are.”

Chapter 52