Old Josh, in: Nelly’s Fine

(Ozark, Alabama, 1867…s/episode No: 78)


“You got old Nelly the cow, en you aren’t satisfied yet?”
Mrs. Ella Hightower told Josh, standing by his shanty.
“Whut does you want,” exclaimed Josh, looking as if he was puzzled at Ella’s guessing she might have Nelly, but she knew Josh had taken Nelly hidden the cow someplace; Old Josh had taken a liking for the cow, and she for him.
“For the last time Josh, are you, or are you now going to tell me where Nelly is? Because you best be bringing that cow back before the sheriff comes!” Asked Ella.
“Give whut back?” questioned Josh, as if he didn’t know what the heck she was talking about, “…cuz I aint git no cow anyhow, dey think I do but I dont!”


Old Josh had hid Nelly the cow down by Goose Creek, and now Josh as he looked towards the main road, parallel the mansion, he could see the Deputy Sheriff dismount his steed, his silhouette showed, he was framed in-between the mansion on one side and a thick old tree to he others side of him, about twenty feet from the house fence.
Ella turned to see whereabouts the sheriff was, knowing it must be the sheriff Josh was looking at, when she turned back to say something to Josh, he was gone, he had disappeared into the fields quicker than a clap of an eye.

Old Josh was stumbling across the fields, his knees giving in as he tried to rush his getaway, his pace, towards Goose Creek; to Ella and the Sheriff, he was just a dark shadow, like the blackened smoke coming from the Hightower chimney.
Against the receding west, they, Ella and the Deputy, followed Josh, flinging voice gestures for him to stop.
Josh kept his tempo, with clinched fists, saying several times, “Nelly’s fine…Nelly’s fine…!”
Then the Deputy Sheriff pulled out his revolver, shot a round in the air, and Josh halted, waited for his demise, “Josh,” said Ella, before he Sheriff could say a word, knowing if he did, he might say something he could not retract, and thus, have to take Josh into jail, and who knows what would follow, to him, Josh was just another ignorant nigger, who got too good of treatment for an Alabama black. Said, Ella,
“What did you take Nelly for?”
Old Josh leaned forward, whispered to Ella, “They shot her!” he said.
“Josh,” said Ella.
Then the Deputy Sheriff said, in passing, “It’s a damn cow that is all it is…a cow, what in tar-nation is wrong with this nigger Ella?”
“Dat’s whut youall call jestice, that there cow he as old as me,” –said Old Josh.
“Is the cow down by the Creek Josh?” asked Ella.

A tear came from Old Josh’s eye, said chokingly,
“Yessum, Mrs. Ella, dat where she is alright! —she a sleepin’ like a baby, under a willow tree, snorin’ away, I done fixed her wound, she on a bed of green grass she is, she done feels like the queen-bee of cows!”
Ella turned to the Sheriff, said with a half smile, hoping she’d let her handle it,
“I’ll go fetch Nelly, and bring her back to her owners, if you don’t mind, and if you just hush this matter up, I think Granny Mae, she got a quart of her good moonshine in the kitchen she’ll be willing to part with for yaw?”
Said the sheriff, nodding his head up and down, “Aint this been a day!”


Written 12-11-2008, during lunch at the La Mia Mamma, in El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru