Free The Dog of the South by Charles Portis

out and the thing never even came to trial. The church arrest had grown out of a squabble with some choir members who had pinched him and bitten him and goosed him. They were trying to force him out of the choir, he said, because they claimed he sang at an odd tempo and threw them off the beat. One Sunday he turned on them and whipped at them with a short piece of grass rope. Some of the women cried.
    I asked him if he had ever visited Yosemite National Park when he was in California.
    â€œNo, I never did.”
    â€œWhat about Muir Woods?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMuir Woods. Near San Francisco.”
    â€œI never heard of it.”
    â€œI’d like to see some of that country. I’ve been to New Mexico and Arizona but I never made it all the way to California. I’d like to go out there sometime.”
    â€œYou’ll love it if you like to see big buck niggers strutting around town kissing white women on the mouth and fondling their titties in public. They’re running wild out there, Speed. They’re water-skiing out there now. If I was a nigger, that’s where I would go. It was a nigger policeman that arrested me outside that little church in Riverside. Can you beat it? He put the cuffs on me too, like I was Billy Cook. You don’t expect a California nigger to defer to a white man but I thought he might have shown some consideration for my age.”
    â€œDid you go to jail?”
    â€œJust overnight, till Monday morning. The municipal judge fined me thirty-five dollars and told me to find myself another church to sing in.”
    I asked him if he was going to British Honduras on vacation and he said, “Vacation! Do you think I’m the kind of man who takes vacations?”
    â€œWhat are you going down there for?”
    â€œMy mother’s there. I need to see her.”
    His mother! I couldn’t believe it. “Is she sick?” I said.
    â€œI don’t know. I need to see her on some business.”
    â€œHow old is she?”
    â€œShe’s so old she’s walking sideways. I hate to see it too. That’s a bad sign. When these old folks start creeping around and shuffling their feet, church is about out.”
    He wanted to see her about some land she owned in Louisiana near the town of Ferriday. It was an island in the Mississippi River called Jean’s Island.
    â€œIt’s not doing her any good,” he said. “She’s just turned it over to the birds and snakes. She pays taxes on it every year and there’s not one penny of income. There’s no gain at all except for the appreciated value. She won’t give it to me and she won’t let me use it. She’s my mother and I think the world of her but she’s hard to do business with.”
    â€œIt’s not cultivated land?”
    â€œNo, it’s just rough timber. The potential is enormous. The black-walnut trees alone are worth fifty thousand dollars for furniture veneer. The stumps could then be cut up and made into pistol grips. How does fifty thousand dollars sound to you?”
    â€œIt sounds pretty good.”
    â€œSome of those trees are whoppers. Double trunks.”
    â€œMaybe you could get a timber lease.”
    â€œI’d take a lease if I could get it. What I want is a deed. I don’t mean a quitclaim either, I mean a warranty deed with a seal on it. So you understand what I’m telling you?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDid you say timber lease?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought you said. Why would you want to cut the timber?”
    â€œThat was your idea. The walnut trees.”
    â€œI was only trying to suggest to you the value of the place. I’m not going to cut those trees. Are you crazy? Cut the trees and the whole thing would wash away and then where would you be? Do you want my opinion? I say leave the trees and make a private hunting preserve out of the place. I’m not talking about