Edge of Dark Water by Joe R. Lansdale Page A

she ran.
    Behind her came Cletus, running at a good pace, his loose bootlaces flapping.
    I suppose the polite thing to do would have been to wait on Jinx, but we didn’t. Terry grabbed the bag, and we broke and ran like a couple of rabbits, leaving her to catch up. When I looked back over my shoulder, she was almost up with us, but Cletus was closing in fast.
    “Hey, hey,” Cletus yelled. “That there is my bag.”
    He had recognized it even in the dark.
    We ran over the ridge and down to the river, and then we ran along its edge. When I looked back again, Cletus wasn’t slowing, and he had picked up a big stick. About that time, Jinx tripped and fell against the riverbank.
    “I got you now,” Cletus yelled, and in fact he did.
    I stopped and turned, saw him bring the stick down on the back of Jinx’s head as she tried to get up. It was a good solid blow, and it wasn’t meant to aggravate or wound. It was meant to kill. Jinx went down with her nose in the dirt, her heels flipping up like two startled birds.
    Cletus dropped his club and grabbed her up and pulled her to the edge of the water and stuck her head under. Jinx started flailing her arms and legs and sputtering.
    Cletus looked at us. “You two better come back, or I’m gonna drown this little nigger. If she’s anything to you, you better come back.”
    I found a rock by the river, about the size of half a cantaloupe, dug it free with my fingers, hefted it in my hand, and started running at him. I seen then that Terry was running up alongside me, and he had the bag of money in one hand and a short, stubby stick in the other.
    Cletus was pushing Jinx’s head under the water again as we came running up. He was yelling at Jinx, even though she didn’t have the pillowcase. “Why you got my pillowcase? You better tell me. Better give it back.”
    I came up on him and brought the rock down with both hands. I hit him on the forehead with it, just as he turned to look at me. It knocked him onto his side and his hat come off. It wasn’t an entirely successful attack. The rock slipped out of my hands and fell down and hit Jinx in the small of the back. Cletus tried to get up, one hand holding his bloody head.
    Then Terry was on Cletus with the stick, swinging it like a madman. Cletus grabbed Terry around the waist, driving him over Jinx, who still lay on the ground, trying to get her hands underneath her. So far, she had only managed to get her face out of the water.
    When Terry was knocked back, the bag came out of his hand and came open and a bunch of that money puffed out of it like goose feathers from an old mattress.
    Cletus came down on top of Terry with his fist raised, and then he saw the money scattered about, said, “That’s my money.”
    Jinx, who had found her feet and her energy, got hold of Terry’s dropped stick and swung it. It was one heck of a swing. I could hear the wind coming off of it; it made a sound like an owl swooping down on a mouse. The blow caught Cletus in the back of the head. His noggin jumped up like it might come off his neck, and then he bent his head forward, shook once, and down came that stick again. Man, that was some hit. You could probably have heard it all the way to Gladewater. It caused Cletus to let out with a kind of bark like a startled dog, and then he fell off Terry.
    Jinx jumped on Cletus again, and was hitting his knocked-out self every which way with that stick, hitting him faster than a woodpecker can peck. I ran over and grabbed her and hugged her and the stick to me. She started sputtering and struggling like a greased pig.
    “You’ll kill him,” I said.
    “That’s what I’m trying to do,” she said.
    I jerked her back and fell on the ground. She struggled on top of me.
    Terry went over and looked at Cletus.
    “He’s good and out,” he said.
    “I hope he’s dead,” Jinx said, still struggling. “Called me nigger, and messed up my toilet, and hit me in the head, and stuck my face in the water.