Cockfighter - Charles Ray Willeford [45]
By all rights, Daddy should have left the farm to me. There were no two ways about it. I was the oldest son, and there wasn't a jury in Georgia that wouldn't award the farm to me if I contested the will. They read the Bible in Georgia, and in the Holy Bible the eldest son always inherits the property.
By four that afternoon I had made up my mind. I would go home and press Randall for the three hundred dollars he owed me. If he paid me, I'd forget about the farm and never consider taking it away from him again. If he didn't, I'd see Judge Powell and do something about it. I needed money, and if I didn't get some soon I'd miss out on the cockfighting season.
I checked my bag and gaff case at the desk, wrote a message for the desk clerk to hold any mail that came for me, paid my bill, and headed for the bus station. I only planned to stay overnight at home, so my shaving kit was enough baggage. If my black shirt got too dirty, I could have my sister-in-law wash and iron it for me.
The bus pulled out at 4:45. There was a one-hour layover in Lake City to change buses, and I arrived in Mansfield, Georgia, at 3:30 a.m. The farm was six miles out of town on the state highway. I could either wait for the rural route postman and ride out with him or I could walk. After being cramped up in the bus for such a long time, I decided to stretch my legs.
I enjoyed the walk to the farm. When I had attended school in town the county had been too poor to afford a school bus. I had walked both ways, winter and summer, over a deeply-rutted red dirt road, muddy when it rained, and dusty when it hadn't rained. The road was paved now, and had been since right after the Korean war. Soldiers from Fort Benning had used a lot of the county as a maneuver area. When the war was over the county had sued the United States Army for enough money to blacktop most of the county roads.
I reached the farm a little after six. I passed Charley Smith's house first, the only Negro tenant Randall had left, but I didn't stop to see the old man, even though a coil of black smoke was curling out of his chimney. Charley was much too old to do hard farm work any longer, but his wife, Aunt Leona, helped Frances around the house four or five days a week, and she was still a good worker.
The old homestead was a gray clapboard two-story structure set well back from the road. Randall hadn't done anything to improve the looks of the place in the five years he had owned it. The ten Van Deman pecan trees, planted between the house and the road some sixty years before, had been the deciding factor when Daddy first bought the place. In another month or so, Charley, Aunt Leona and Frances would be under the trees gathering nuts. If Randall hit a good market, he would realize three or four hundred dollars from the pecans before Christmas, but I couldn't wait that long to get the money he owed me.
Old Dusty was lying on the long front gallery near the front door, but he didn't bark or lift his head when I entered the yard through the fence gate. He could neither see nor hear me. The old dog was almost sixteen years old, blind and stone-deaf. When I reached the steps, however, he felt the vibration, snuffled, and began to bark feebly. His hind legs were partially paralyzed. When he tried to struggle to his feet, I patted his head and made him lie down again. The