Gentlemen & Savages

Gentlemen & Savages

This is a true story, as best I can remember it. The years blur recollections so I can’t say it happened this way in all details. But these events were burned into my memory and became one of those family stories that get repeated over the years. This is how I remember it. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
My grandfather on my mother’s side, Morgan James, was born in Kentucky in 1867. Family stories had it that he had fought a duel when young and killed a man. This led to him taking a buy out from his brothers on the family farm and departing to Missouri where he met and married my grandmother and got medium rich on land deals. Later he settled in Indiana, founded the Monroe County Farmer’s Bank and raised seven children. I was born during War II and lived with my grandparents while my mother worked in another town and my father was in the army.
From my earliest memory Grandfather never left the house dressed in anything but a three-piece suit, tie and hat. He tipped his hat to all women, because ‘All women are ladies no matter their station in life.’ He provided instruction on certain matters regarding ‘what gentlemen do’ but expected me to learn mostly by example and made it clear that he expected me to become a gentleman and to always know and do the right thing. Dinner was eaten at the table and children were expected show up on time with clean hands and to use proper manners. Disagreements were to be calmly discussed, voices were not to be raised in heated argument. There were times I fell short of his standards.
At that time we all lived in a middle class neighborhood in a large house with many bedrooms, which were occupied by my mother and by aunts and uncles when they visited. Grandfather gave me a bow and arrows for my fifth birthday; I never wanted to be the cowboy, always the Indian. I talked him into removing the suction cups and sharpening the shafts so the arrows would stick into the target he made for me, and into other things. I got pretty good with my bow, for a five year old.
A few months before my birthday, a family whose members all appeared to be insane had moved in next door, name was Weatherford. Soon windows were broken by flying skillets and shoes, and were never repaired. Once a week or so, Mr. Weatherford would beat his wife, whole neighborhood could hear it, lots of banging around, screaming and cursing. And once a week or so she would chase him down the street with a butcher knife, cut him across his back once, right through his shirt. Everyone saw it. The adults told stories about Mr. Weatherford, how he went to a bar down by the railroad tracks on Friday nights got drunk and beat up any man who looked at him. They said everyone was afraid of him. I sure was. He had a wild look about him, like a rabid dog I once saw. I guess his wife wasn’t too scared of him though, she had her knife.
The kids, I never did get a count of how many there were, even though I could count to a hundred by then, seemed like a dozen or so, all boys, all bigger than me. They ran half naked in the winter, set fire to the widow lady’s shed, and their own garage, screamed, made faces and threw rocks at me across the fence, and at anyone who ventured within range, including dogs and cats. When they were out roaming the neighborhood everyone ran from them, including me. I don’t think I ever saw a Weatherford boy without a rock in his hand, or alone. They always ran in a pack. ‘Mean as rattlesnakes, man, woman and child,’ my grandmother said.
One cold winter afternoon, I went into our backyard and saw that the Weatherford boys had hung a cat by its tail from their clothesline over a fire in a barrel, and were poking it with burning sticks as its fur burned and it screeched and struggled to get free. I yelled at them to stop. They threw rocks at me and yelled they would put me in the barrel and burn me up if they caught me. I believed them.
I was a tender-hearted boy and couldn’t stand to see anything suffer. I started to cry for the cat, then something bright and hot came up in my chest and I decided the hell with crying. I had my bow. I drew and loosed, got one of them in the side, arrow stuck in good and he fell down crying, and that bright hot thing in me swelled and filled me up. The others ran for the fence and at me with burning sticks, throwing rocks and yelling they were going to put me in the fire. I got another arrow off, stuck it into the chest of one them and he screamed and grabbed at it just like in the movies, and I ran for the house before they could get over the fence.
I told my grandmother what happened, figured I was in for a whipping but I wanted her to rescue the cat. She said, ‘I’ll get Morgan.’ I looked out the window and saw the Weatherford boys running into their house. They forgot about the cat and it got loose and ran into their garage.
My grandfather called the police. Two big men in uniforms came in a big car. My grandfather talked to them on the front porch. I watched out the window as the policemen went and knocked on the Weatherford’s door. Somebody opened the door and they went inside. There was some yelling but it quieted down quickly. The policemen came out of the Weatherford’s. The one carrying the cat in a towel got in their car. The other one came to our house and talked to my grandfather on the front porch. Then my grandfather called me outside. I knew I was in serious trouble.
The policemen asked me if I had shot those boys with arrows. I said, ‘Yes sir.’ My grandfather had taught me that all adult men except family were to be addressed as, ‘Sir,’ and all ladies as, ‘Ma’am.’ The policeman asked me why I had done that, and I told him my story. ‘We could arrest you, and take you to jail,’ he said. ‘Do you know what jail is?’
I knew jail was iron bars and I thought of the fields behind the house where I roamed and where I couldn’t go if they put me in jail, and a heavy stone settled in my belly. ‘Yes sir, I said. ‘I know.’
‘We won’t take you this time, but don’t shoot anyone else with your arrows or we might have to put you in jail.’ They then drove away with the cat. Grandfather told me they would take care of the cat. But a little seed of doubt took root in my mind. What would have happened to the cat if I hadn’t shot those boys? Nothing would have been done till the policemen arrived and that might have been too late for the cat.
A little later I was sitting at the kitchen table and talking with my grandparents. I asked Grandfather why the Weatherfords were like that. He said some people were just bad clear through, nothing to be done for them. He also told me I should have come and told him what they were doing instead of shooting those boys. He didn’t say what I had done was wrong. Then Mr. Weatherford pounded on our back door. He yelled he was going to beat me for what I did to his boys. My grandfather told me to come with him; he was going to the back steps. Grandfather opened the door and had me stand beside him.
I had thought my grandfather was a big man; he was big to me. But then I realized that he was not big at all. Mr. Weatherford towered over him. He was even bigger than the policemen and looked like a giant to me in his boots, torn shirt and whiskers. His eyes had that wild look and I remembered that he beat up grown men and I remembered what my grandmother had said, ‘mean as rattlesnakes.’ He shook his fist in grandfather’s face and said, ‘If you don’t whip that boy’s ass I will.’ Had a big leather belt in his hand and I could see he meant to beat me with it and maybe Grandfather too He also yelled some obscenities. I didn’t know they were obscenities, but later on when I asked my grandmother she told me to never use those words.
Grandfather took his hand out of his pants pocket and let it hang at his side holding the pistol, a Colt Banker’s Special, he always carried in his front pocket. Without raising his voice he said, ‘You touch this boy Weatherford I’ll shoot you down like the dog you are. Now get off my property.’
Mr. Weatherford glared down at my grandfather. His face swelled up red and he was breathing hard. I was scared for myself and for my grandfather. I don’t remember if that man said anything else or not. I remember that he shook like he was going to explode, then took a step back, turned around, went out in our yard, stomped down the fence and walked over it to his yard.
That night after dinner I asked my grandfather if he would really have shot that man. He said, ‘Son, there may come a time when you have to kill a man. That’s just part of life. But don’t ever act like that no account man did today. No gentleman behaves that way.’
I don’t remember ever having much trouble with the Weatherfords after that. I saw a pack of the boys a few days later when I was out wandering around the neighborhood. I didn’t have my bow with me but I got ready all the same, ready as I could get. I wasn’t running this time. All they did was yell at me. They didn’t throw rocks or come at me.
Morgan James had his eighty-first birthday that year. Many years later when I looked at old family photo albums I realized that he had been a very thin man and about five feet seven. He died ten years later. His pistol was supposed to come down to me but a shirttail cousin stole it.