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` The Orbit: The Online Drive-in of Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale







THE PIT

Six months earlier they had captured him. Tonight Harry went into the pit. He
and Big George, right after the bull terriers got through tearing the guts out
of one another. When that was over, he and George would go down and do the
business. The loser would stay there and be fed to the dogs, each of which had
been starved for the occasion.

When the dogs finished eating, the loser’s head would go up on a pole. Already a
dozen poles circled the pit. On each rested a head, or skull, depending on how
long it had been exposed to the elements, ambitious pole-climbing ants and
hungry birds. And of course how much flesh the terriers ripped off before it was
erected.

Twelve poles. Twelve heads.

Tonight a new pole and a new head went up.

Harry looked about at the congregation. All sixty or so of them. They were a
sight. Like mad creatures out of Lewis Carroll. Only they didn’t have long
rabbit ears or tall silly hats. They were just backwoods rednecks, not too
unlike himself. With one major difference. They were as loony as waltzing mice.
Or maybe they weren’t crazy and he was. Sometimes he felt as if he had stepped
into an alternate universe where the old laws of nature and what was right and
wrong did not apply. Just like Alice plunging down the rabbit hole into
Wonderland.

The crowd about the pit had been mumbling and talking, but now they grew silent.
Out into the glow of the neon lamps stepped a man dressed in a black suit and
hat. A massive rattlesnake was coiled about his right arm. It was wriggling from
shoulder to wrist. About his left wrist a smaller snake was wrapped, a
copperhead. The man held a Bible in his right hand. He was called Preacher.

Draping the monstrous rattlesnake around his neck, Preacher let it hang there.
It dangled that way as if drugged. Its tongue would flash out from time to time.
It gave Harry the willies. He hated snakes. They always seemed to be smiling.
Nothing was that fucking funny, not all the time.

Preacher opened his Bible and read:

"Behold, I give unto you the power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over
all the power of the enemy: and nothing will by any means hurt you."

Preacher paused and looked at the sky. "So God," he said, "we want to thank you
for a pretty good potato crop, though you’ve done better, and we want to thank
you for the terriers, even though we had to raise and feed them ourselves, and
we want to thank you for sending these outsiders our way, thank you for Harry
Joe Stinton and Big George, the nigger."

Preacher paused and looked about the congregation. He lifted the hand with the
copperhead in it high above his head. Slowly he lowered it and pointed the
snake-filled fist at George. "Three times this here nigger has gone into the
pit, and three times he has come out victorious. Couple times against whites,
once against another nigger. Some of us think he’s cheating.

"Tonight, we bring you another white feller, one of your chosen people, though
you might not know it on account of the way you been letting the nigger win
here, and we’re hoping for a good fight with the nigger being killed at the end.
We hope this here business pleases you. We worship you and the snakes in the way
we ought to. Amen."

Big George looked over at Harry. "Be ready, sucker. I’m gonna take you apart
like a gingerbread man."

Harry didn’t say anything. He couldn’t understand it. George was a prisoner just
as he was. A man degraded and made to lift huge rocks and pull carts and jog
mile on miles every day. And just so they could get in shape for this–to go down
into that pit and try and beat each other to death for the amusement of these
crazies.

And it had to be worse for George. Being black, he was seldom called anything
other than "the nigger" by these psychos. Furthermore, no secret had been made
of the fact that they wanted George to lose, and for him to win. The idea of a
black pit champion was eating their little honkey hearts out.

Yet, Big George had developed a sort of perverse pride in being the
longest-lived pit fighter yet.

"It’s something I can do right," George had once said. "On the outside I wasn’t
nothing but a nigger, an uneducated nigger working in rose fields, mowing big
lawns for rich white folks. Here I’m still the nigger, but I’m THE NIGGER, the
bad-ass nigger, and no matter what these peckerwoods call me, they know it, and
they know I’m the best at what I do. I’m the king here. And they may hate me for
it, keep me in a cell and make me run and lift stuff, but for that time in the
pit, they know I’m the one that can do what they can’t do, and they’re afraid of
me. I like it."

Glancing at George, Harry saw that the big man was not nervous. Or at least not
showing it. He looked as if he were ready to go on holiday. Nothing to it. He
was about to go down into that pit and try and beat a man to death with his
fists and it was nothing. All in a day’s work. A job well done for an odd sort
of respect that beat what he had had on the outside.

The outside. It was strange how much he and Big George used that term. The
outside. As if they were enclosed in some small bubble-like cosmos that perched
on the edge of the world they had known; a cosmos invisible to the outsiders, a
spectral place with new mathematics and nebulous laws of mind and physics.

Maybe he was in hell. Perhaps he had been wiped out on the highway and had gone
to the dark place. Just maybe his memory of how he had arrived here was a false
dream inspired by demonic powers. The whole thing about him taking a wrong turn
through Big Thicket country and having his truck break down just outside of
Morganstown was an illusion, and stepping onto the Main Street of Morganstown,
population 66, was his crossing the River Styx and landing smack dab in the
middle of a hell designed for good ol' boys.

God, had it been six months ago?

He had been on his way to visit his mother in Woodville, and he had taken a
shortcut through the Thicket. Or so he thought. But he soon realized that he had
looked at the map wrong. The shortcut listed on the paper was not the one he had
taken. He had mistaken that road for the one he wanted. This one had not been
marked. And then he had reached Morganstown and his truck had broken down. He
had been forced into six months hard labor alongside George, the champion pit
fighter, and now the moment for which he had been groomed had arrived.

They were bringing the terriers out now. One, the champion, was named Old
Codger. He was getting on in years. He had won many a pit fight. Tonight, win or
lose, this would be his last battle. The other dog, Muncher, was young and
inexperienced, but he was strong and eager for blood.

A ramp was lowered into the pit. Preacher and two men, the owners of the dogs,
went down into the pit with Codger and Muncher. When they reached the bottom a
dozen bright spotlights were thrown on them. They seemed to wade through the
light.

The bleachers arranged about the pit began to fill. People mumbled and passed
popcorn. Bets were placed and a little, fat man wearing a bowler hat copied them
down in a note pad as fast as they were shouted. The ramp was removed.

In the pit, the men took hold of their dogs by the scruff of the neck and
removed their collars. They turned the dogs so they were facing the walls of the
pit and could not see one another. The terriers were about six feet apart, butts
facing.

Preacher said, "A living dog is better than a dead lion."

Harry wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything.

"Ready yourselves," Preacher said. "Gentlemen, face your dogs."

The owners slapped their dogs across the muzzle and whirled them to face one
another. They immediately began to leap and strain at their masters’ grips.

"Gentlemen, release your dogs."

The dogs did not bark. For some reason, that was what Harry noted the most. They
did not even growl. They were quick little engines of silence.

Their first lunge was a miss and they snapped air. But the second time they hit
head on with the impact of .45 slugs. Codger was knocked on his back and Muncher
dove for his throat. But the experienced dog popped up its head and grabbed
Muncher by the nose. Codger’s teeth met through Muncher’s flesh.

Bets were called from the bleachers.

The little man in the bowler was writing furiously.

Muncher, the challenger, was dragging Codger, the champion, around the pit,
trying to make the old dog let go of his nose. Finally, by shaking his head
violently and relinquishing a hunk of his muzzle, he succeeded.

Codger rolled to his feet and jumped Muncher. Muncher turned his head just out
of the path of Codger’s jaws. The older dog’s teeth snapped together like a
spring-loaded bear trap, saliva popped out of his mouth in a fine spray.

Muncher grabbed Codger by the right ear. The grip was strong and Codger was
shook like a used condom about to be tied and tossed. Muncher bit the champ’s
ear completely off.

Harry felt sick. He thought he was going to throw up. He saw that Big George was
looking at him. "You think this is bad, motherfucker," George said, "this ain’t
nothing but a cake walk. Wait till I get you in that pit."

"You sure run hot and cold, don’t you?" Harry said.

"Nothing personal," George said sharply and turned back to look at the fight in
the pit.

Nothing personal, Harry thought. God, what could be more personal? Just
yesterday, as they trained, jogged along together, a pickup loaded with
gun-bearing crazies driving alongside of them, he had felt close to George. They
had shared many personal things these six months, and he knew that George liked
him. But when it came to the pit, George was a different man. The concept of
friendship became alien to him. When Harry had tried to talk to hint about it
yesterday, he had said much the same thing. "Ain’t nothing personal, Harry my
man, but when we get in that pit don’t look to me for nothing besides pain,
‘cause I got plenty of that to give you, a lifetime of it, and I’ll just keep it
coming."

Down in the pit Codger screamed. It could be described no other way. Muncher had
him on his back and was biting hint on the belly. Codger was trying to double
forward and get hold of Muncher’s head, but his tired jaws kept slipping off of
the sweaty neck fur. Blood was starting to pump out of Codger’s belly.

"Bite him, boy," someone yelled from the bleachers, "tear his ass up, son."

Harry noted that every man, woman and child was leaning forward in their seat,
straining for a view. Their faces full of lust, like lovers approaching vicious
climax. For a few moments they were in that pit and they were the dogs.
Vicarious thrills without the pain.

Codger’s leg began to flap.

"Kill him! Kill him!" the crowd began to chant.

Codger had quit moving. Muncher was burrowing his muzzle deeper into the old
dog’s guts. Preacher called for a pickup. Muncher’s owner pried the dog’s jaws
loose of Codger’s guts. Muncher’s muzzle looked as if it had been dipped in red
ink.

"This sonofabitch is still alive," Muncher’s owner said to Codger.

Codger’s owner walked over to the dog and said, "You little fucker!" He pulled a
Saturday Night Special from his coat pocket and shot Codger twice in the head.
Codger didn’t even kick. He just evacuated his bowels right there.

Muncher came over and sniffed Codger’s corpse, then, lifting his leg, he took a
leak on the dead dog’s head. The stream of piss was bright red.

The ramp was lowered. The dead dog was dragged out and tossed behind the
bleachers. Muncher walked up the ramp beside his owner. The little dog strutted
like he had just been crowned King of Creation. Codger’s owner walked out last.
He was not a happy man. Preacher stayed in the pit. A big man known as Sheriff
Jimmy went down the ramp to join him. Sheriff Jimmy had a big pistol on his hip
and a toy badge on his chest. The badge looked like the sort of thing that had
come m a plastic bag with a capgun and whistle. But it was his sign of office
and his word was iron.

A man next to Harry prodded him with the barrel of a shotgun. Walking close
behind George, Harry went down the ramp and into the pit. The man with the
shotgun went back up. In the bleachers the betting had started again, the
little, fat man with the bowler was busy.

Preacher’s rattlesnake was still lying serenely about his neck, and the little
copperhead had been placed in Preacher’s coat pocket. It poked its head out from
time to time and looked around.

Harry glanced up. The heads and skulls on the poles–in spite of the fact they
were all eyeless, and due to the strong light nothing but bulbous shapes on
shafts–seemed to look down, taking as much amusement in the situation as the
crowd on the bleachers.

Preacher had his Bible out again. He was reading a verse. "...when thou walkest
through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon
thee..."

Harry had no idea what that or the snake had to do with anything. Certainly he
could not see the relationship with the pit. These people’s minds seemed to
click and grind to a different set of internal gears than those on the outside.

The reality of the situation settled on Harry like a heavy, woolen coat. He was
about to kill or be killed, right here in this dog-smelling pit, and there was
nothing he could do that would change that.

He thought perhaps his life should flash before his eyes or something, but it
did not. Maybe he should try to think of something wonderful, a last fine
thought of what used to be. First he summoned up the image of his wife. That did
nothing for him. Though his wife had once been pretty and bright, he could not
remember her that way. The image that came to mind was quite different. A dumpy,
lazy woman with constant back pains and her hair pulled up into an eternal
topknot of greasy, brown hair. There was never a smile on her face or a word of
encouragement for him. He always felt that she expected him to entertain her and
that he was not doing a very good job of it. There was not even a moment of
sexual ecstasy that he could recall. After their daughter had been born she had
given up screwing as a wasted exercise. Why waste energy on sex when she could
spend it complaining.

He flipped his mental card file to his daughter. What he saw was an ugly,
potato-nosed girl of twelve. She had no personality. Her mother was Miss
Congeniality compared to her. Potato Nose spent all of her time pining over
thin, blond heartthrobs on television. It wasn’t bad enough that they glared at
Harry via the tube, they were also pinned to her walls and hiding in magazines
she had cast throughout the house.

These were the last thoughts of a man about to face death?

There was just nothing there.

His job had sucked. His wife hadn’t.

He clutched at straws. There had been Melva, a fine-looking little cheerleader
from high school. She had had the brain of a dried black-eyed pea, but
God-All-Mighty, did she know how to hide a weenie. And there had always been
that strange smell about her, like bananas. It was especially strong about her
thatch, which was thick enough for a bald eagle to nest in.

But thinking about her didn’t provide much pleasure either. She had gotten hit
by a drunk in a Mack truck while parked offside of a dark road with that Pulver
boy.

Damn that Pulver. At least he had died in ecstasy. Had never known what hit him.
When that Mack went up his ass he probably thought for a split second he was
having the greatest orgasm of his life.

Damn that Melva. What had she seen in Pulver anyway?

He was skinny and stupid and had a face like a peanut pattie.

God, he was beat at every turn. Frustrated at every corner. No good thoughts or
beautiful visions before the moment of truth. Only blackness, a life of dull,
planned movements as consistent and boring as a bran-conscious geriatric’s bowel
movement. For a moment he thought he might cry.

Sheriff Jimmy took out his revolver. Unlike the badge it was not a toy. "Find
your corner, boys."

George turned and strode to one side of the pit, took off his shirt and leaned
against the wall. His body shined like wet licorice in the spotlights.

After a moment, Harry made his legs work. He walked to a place opposite George
and took off his shirt. He could feel the months of hard work rippling beneath
his flesh. His mind was suddenly blank. There wasn’t even a god he believed in.
No one to pray to. Nothing to do but the inevitable.

Sheriff Jimmy walked to the middle of the pit. He yelled out for the crowd to
shut up.

Silence reigned.

"In this corner," he said, waving the revolver at Harry, "we have Harry Joe
Stinton, family man and pretty good feller for an outsider. He’s six two and
weighs two hundred and thirty-eight pounds, give or take a pound since my
bathroom scales ain’t exactly on the money." A cheer went up.

"Over here," Sheriff Jimmy said, waving the revolver at George, "standing six
four tall and weighing two hundred and forty-two pounds, we got the nigger,
present champion of this here sport."

No one cheered. Someone made a loud sound with his mouth that sounded like a
fart, the greasy kind that goes on and on and on.

George appeared unfazed. He looked like a statue. He knew who he was and what he
was. The Champion Of The Pit.

"First off," Sheriff Jimmy said, "you boys come forward and show your hands."

Harry and George walked to the center of the pit, held out their hands, fingers
spread wide apart, so that the crowd could see that they were empty.

"Turn and walk to your corners and don’t turn around," Sheriff Jimmy said.

George and Harry did as they were told. Sheriff Jimmy followed Harry and put an
arm around his shoulders. "I got four hogs riding on you," he said. "And I’ll
tell you what, you beat the nigger and I’ll do you a favor. Elvira, who works
over at the cafe, has already agreed. You win and you can have her. How’s that
sound?"

Harry was too numb with the insanity of it all to answer. Sheriff Jimmy was
offering him a piece of ass if he won, as if this would be greater incentive
than coming out of the pit alive. With this bunch there was just no way to
anticipate what might come next. Nothing was static.

"She can do more tricks with a six-inch dick than a monkey can with a hundred
foot of grapevine, boy. When the going gets rough in there, you remember that.
Okay?"

Harry didn’t answer. He just looked at the pit wall.

"You ain’t gonna get nowhere in life being sullen like that," Sheriff Jimmy
said. "Now, you go get him and plow a rut in his black ass."

Sheriff Jimmy grabbed Harry by the shoulders and whirled him around, slapped him
hard across the face in the same way the dogs had been slapped. George had been
done the same way by the preacher. Now George and Harry were facing one another.
Harry thought George looked like an ebony gargoyle fresh escaped from hell. His
bald, bullet-like head gleamed in the harsh lights and his body looked as rough
and ragged as stone.

Harry and George raised their hands in classic boxer stance and began to circle
one another.

From above someone yelled, "Don’t hit the nigger in the head, it’ll break your
hand. Go for the lips, they got soft lips."

The smell of sweat, dog blood and Old Codger’s shit was thick in the air. The
lust of the crowd seemed to have an aroma as well. Harry even thought he could
smell Preacher’s snakes. Once, when a boy, he had been fishing down by the creek
bed and had smelled an odor like that, and a water moccasin had wriggled out
beneath his legs and splashed in the water. It was as if everything he feared in
the world had been put in this pit. The idea of being put deep down in the
ground. Irrational people for whom logic did not exist. Rotting skulls on poles
about the pit. Living skulls attached to hunched-forward bodies that yelled for
blood. Snakes. The stench of death–blood and shit. And every white man’s fear,
racist or not—a big, black man with a lifetime of hatred in his eyes.

The circle tightened. They could almost touch one another now.

Suddenly George’s lips began to tremble. His eyes poked out of his head, seemed
to be looking at something just behind and to the right of Harry.

"Sss ... snake!" George screamed.

God, thought Harry, one of Preacher’s snakes has escaped. Harry jerked his head
for a look.

And George stepped in and knocked him on his ass and kicked him full in the
chest. Harry began scuttling along the ground on his hands and knees, George
following along kicking him in the ribs. Harry thought he felt something snap
inside, a cracked rib maybe. He finally scuttled to his feet and bicycled around
the pit. Goddamn, he thought, I fell for the oldest, silliest trick in the book.
Here I am fighting for my life and I fell for it.

"Way to go, stupid fuck!" A voice screamed from the bleachers. "Hey nigger, why
don’t you try ‘hey, your shoe’s untied,’ he’ll go for it."

"Get off the goddamned bicycle," someone else yelled. "Fight."

"You better run," George said. "I catch you I’m gonna punch you so hard in the
mouth, gonna knock your fucking teeth out your asshole...."

Harry felt dizzy. His head was like a yo-yo doing the Around the World trick.
Blood ran down his forehead, dribbled off the tip of his nose and gathered on
his upper lip. George was closing the gap again.

I’m going to die right here in this pit, thought Harry. I’m going to die just
because my truck broke down outside of town and no one knows where I am. That’s
why I’m going to die. It’s as simple as that.

Popcorn rained down on Harry and a tossed cup of ice hit him in the back.
"Wanted to see a fucking foot race," a voice called, "I’d have gone to the
fucking racetrack."

"Ten on the nigger," another voice said.

"Five bucks the nigger kills him in five minutes."

When Harry backpedaled past Preacher, the snake man leaned forward and snapped,
"You asshole, I got a sawbuck riding on you."

Preacher was holding the big rattler again. He had the snake gripped just below
the head, and he was so upset over how the fight had gone so far, he was
unconsciously squeezing the snake in a vice-like grip. The rattler was squirming
and twisting and flapping about, but Preacher didn’t seem to notice. The snake’s
forked tongue was outside its mouth and it was really working, slapping about
like a thin strip of rubber come loose on a whirling tire. The copperhead in
Preacher’s pocket was still looking out, as if along with Preacher he might have
a bet on the outcome of the fight as well. As Harry danced away the rattler
opened its mouth so wide its jaws came unhinged. It looked as if it were trying
to yell for help.

Harry and George came together again in the center of the pit. Fists like black
ball bearings slammed the sides of Harry’s head. The pit was like a whirlpool,
the walls threatening to close in and suck Harry down into oblivion.

Kneeing with all his might, Harry caught George solidly in the groin. George
grunted, stumbled back, half-bent over.

The crowd went wild.

Harry brought cupped hands down on George’s neck, knocked him to his knees.
Harry used the opportunity to knock out one of the big man’s teeth with the toe
of his shoe.

He was about to kick him again when George reached up and clutched the crotch of
Harry’s khakis, taking a crushing grip on Harry’s testicles.

"Got you by the balls," George growled.

Harry bellowed and began to hammer wildly on top of George’s head with both
fists. He realized with horror that George was pulling him forward. By God,
George was going to bite him on the balls.

Jerking up his knee he caught George in the nose and broke his grip. He bounded
free, skipped and whipped about the pit like an Indian dancing for rain.

He skipped and whooped by Preacher. Preacher’s rattler had quit twisting. It
hung loosely from Preacher’s tight fist. Its eyes were bulging out of its head
like the humped backs of grub worms. Its mouth was closed and its forked tongue
hung limply from the edge of it.

The copperhead was still watching the show from the safety of Preacher’s pocket,
its tongue zipping out from time to time to taste the air. The little snake
didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

George was on his feet again, and Harry could tell that already he was feeling
better. Feeling good enough to make Harry feel real bad.

Preacher abruptly realized that his rattler had gone limp.

"No, God no!" he cried. He stretched the huge rattler between his hands. "Baby,
baby," he bawled, "breathe for me, Sapphire, breathe for me." Preacher shook the
snake viciously, trying to jar some life into it, but the snake did not move.

The pain in Harry’s groin had subsided and he could think again. George was
moving in on him, and there just didn’t seem any reason to run. George would
catch him, and when he did, it would just be worse because he would be even more
tired from all that running. It had to be done. The mating dance was over, now
all that was left was the intercourse of violence.

A black fist turned the flesh and cartilage of Harry’s nose into smoldering
putty. Harry ducked his head and caught another blow to the chin. The stars he
had not been able to see above him because of the lights, he could now see below
him, spinning constellations on the floor of the pit.

It came to him again, the fact that he was going to die right here without one
good, last thought. But then maybe there was one. He envisioned his wife, dumpy
and sullen and denying him sex. George became her and she became George and
Harry did what he had wanted to do for so long, he hit her in the mouth. Not
once, but twice and a third time. He battered her nose and he pounded her ribs.
And by God, but she could hit back. He felt something crack in the center of his
chest and his left cheekbone collapsed into his face. But Harry did not stop
battering her. He looped and punched and pounded her dumpy face until it was
George’s black face and George’s black face turned back to her face and he
thought of her now on the bed, naked, on her back, battered, and he was naked
and mounted her, and the blows of his fists were the sexual thrusts of his cock
and he was pounding her until—George screamed. He had fallen to his knees. His
right eye was hanging out on the tendons. One of Harry’s straight rights had
struck George’s cheekbone with such power it had shattered it and pressured the
eye out of its socket.

Blood ran down Harry’s knuckles. Some of it was George’s. Much of it was his
own. His knucklebones showed through the rent flesh of his hands, but they did
not hurt. They were past hurting.

George wobbled to his feet. The two men stood facing one another, neither
moving. The crowd was silent. The only sound in the pit was the harsh breathing
of the two fighters, and Preacher who had stretched Sapphire out on the ground
on her back and was trying to blow air into her mouth. Occasionally he’d lift
his head and say in tearful supplication, "Breathe for me, Sapphire, breathe for
me."

Each time Preacher blew a blast into the snake, its white underbelly would swell
and then settle down, like a leaky balloon that just wouldn’t hold air.

George and Harry came together. Softly. They had their arms on each other’s
shoulders and they leaned against one another, breathed each other’s breath.

Above, the silence of the crowd was broken when a heckler yelled, "Start some
music, the fuckers want to dance."

"It’s nothing personal," George said.

"Not at all," Harry said.

They managed to separate, reluctantly, like two lovers who had just copulated to
the greatest orgasm of their lives.

George bent slightly and put up his hands. The eye dangling on his cheek looked
like some kind of tentacled creature trying to crawl up and into George’s
socket. Harry knew that he would have to work on that eye.

Preacher screamed. Harry afforded him a sideways glance. Sapphire was awake. And
now she was dangling from Preacher’s face. She had bitten through his top lip
and was hung there by her fangs. Preacher was saying something about the power
to tread on serpents and stumbling about the pit. Finally his back struck the
pit wall and he slid down to his butt and just sat there, legs sticking out in
front of him, Sapphire dangling off his lip like some sort of malignant growth.
Gradually, building momentum, the snake began to thrash.

Harry and George met again in the center of the pit. A second wind had washed in
on them and they were ready. Harry hurt wonderfully. He was no longer afraid.
Both men were smiling, showing the teeth they had left. They began to hit each
other.

Harry worked on the eye. Twice he felt it beneath his fists, a grape-like thing
that cushioned his knuckles and made them wet. Harry’s entire body felt on
fire–twin fires, ecstasy and pain.

George and Harry collapsed together, held each other, waltzed about.

"You done good," George said, "make it quick."

The black man’s legs went out from under him and he fell to his knees, his head
between. Harry took the man’s head in his hands and kneed him in the face with
all his might. George went limp. Harry grasped George’s chin and the back of his
head and gave a violent twist. The neck bone snapped and George fell back, dead.

The copperhead, which had been poking its head out of Preacher’s pocket, took
this moment to slither away into a crack in the pit’s wall.

Out of nowhere came weakness. Harry fell to his knees. He touched George’s
ruined face with his fingers.

Suddenly hands had him. The ramp was lowered. The crowd cheered.
Preacher–Sapphire dislodged from his lip–came forward to help Sheriff Jimmy with
him. They lifted him up.

Harry looked at Preacher. His lip was greenish. His head looked like a
sun-swollen watermelon, yet, he seemed well enough. Sapphire was wrapped around
his neck again. They were still buddies. The snake looked tired. Harry no longer
felt afraid of it. He reached out and touched its head. It did not try to bite
him. He felt its feathery tongue brush his bloody hand.

They carried him up the ramp and the crowd took him, lifted him up high above
their heads. He could see the moon and the stars now. For some odd reason they
did not look familiar. Even the nature of the sky seemed different.

He turned and looked down. The terriers were being herded into the pit. They ran
down the ramp like rats. Below, he could hear them begin to feed, to fight for
choice morsels. But there were so many dogs, and they were so hungry, this only
went on for a few minutes. After a while they came back up the ramp followed by
Sheriff Jimmy closing a big lock-bladed knife and by Preacher who held George’s
head in his outstretched hands. George’s eyes were gone. Little of the face
remained. Only that slick, bald pate had been left undamaged by the terriers.

A pole came out of the crowd and the head was pushed onto its sharpened end and
the pole was dropped into a deep hole in the ground. The pole, like a long neck,
rocked its trophy for a moment, then went still. Dirt was kicked into the hole
and George joined the others, all those beautiful, wonderful heads and skulls.

They began to carry Harry away. Tomorrow he would have Elvira, who could do more
tricks with a six-inch dick than a monkey could with a hundred foot of
grapevine, then he would heal and a new outsider would come through and they
would train together and then they would mate in blood and sweat in the depths
of the pit.

The crowd was moving toward the forest rail, toward town. The smell of pines was
sweet in the air. And as they carried him away, Harry turned his head so he
could look back and see the pit, its maw closing in shadow as the lights were
cut, and just before the last one went out Harry saw the heads on the poles, and
dead center of his vision, was the shiny, bald pate of his good friend George.

 

 

 

"The Pit" was originally published in 1987 in The Black Lizard Anthology of
Crime Fiction [Black Lizard Books]. It later appeared in Electric Gumbo, a
collection of Lansdale’s short stories published Quality Paperback Book Club; By
Bizarre Hands, a collection of Lansdale’s short stories published by Avon Books;
and in High Cotton: Selected Short Stories of Joe R. Lansdale, published by
Golden Gryphon Press. "The Pit" © 1987 By Bizarre Hands, LLC. All rights
reserved.

More fun next week, for sure! Stop on by Thursday, August 1, for more Mojo
madness!