Cletus Snopes was a man shaped by hardship. His father was a hard man with a hard heart, and he ruled the Snopes family homestead with a rod of iron. Cletus had barely begun to stand when his father told him, “If you’re old enough to walk then you’re old enough to work.” And so Cletus joined his father and brothers in scratching a living out of the hard ground. Cletus always felt in the deepest, most hidden part of his heart that something better must be out there, but saying so would only earn him another beating. It didn’t take much to earn a beating in the Snopes household. Most of the time all it took was their patriarch getting into the whiskey again.
Cletus was never a praying man. His house was moved by the spirits of the bottle, not by the Spirit of the Lord. He was never a caring man either. His father had hard words for many. When he was in the liquor his father would go on for hours cursing niggers and redskins for their laziness. Cursing politicians for their lies and preachers for acting like their shit don’t stink. Cursing rich men for pushing people around, although Cletus thought that last part was the pot calling the kettle black.
Cletus took up his father’s work, as he had never known anything else. He grew corn, but most of it was distilled to make rotgut. Supposedly this was so the family could make some extra money, but most of the profits were drunk by a certain Mr. Snopes. Cletus always hated his father, and like most boys who hate their fathers he grew into a man much like his father. He took up his habits of drinking and cursing the world at a very young age. He would never be a man in his father’s eyes until he could hold his whiskey. But Cletus always nourished the
37 hope of escape; that one day his life might be just a little more than looking up the north end of a southbound mule. Then the day came when he saw his chance.
Cletus heard opportunity knocking in the form of a handbill in the general store. Someone else had to read it for him of course; his father had no use for letters or the fancy-pants professors who knew what to do with them. It was from Master Jones, the owner of the largest plantation in those parts, advertising that he was leading a settlement to the Kansas Territory and would need many hired hands for the venture. Cletus jumped at the opportunity, never looking back. He never even told his father that he was leaving. That would only earn him another beating.
Cletus loved being an overseer for Master Jones. Finally, instead of taking the punishment all the time he was the one dishing it out. He quickly earned a reputation both among the slaves and the hired hands as a man with a heart of stone, and a man who got things done. After a while just a sideways glance from Cletus Snopes was enough to make a slave redouble his efforts. Master Jones looked upon him with favor as a man after his own heart. Cletus rose quickly through the ranks of new hires to become foreman of overseers, and he was absolutely overjoyed. Finally, he had done it. He was more than just poor white trash. He was somebody.
When one of the slaves went rabbit and took off, it fell to Cletus to take revenge and teach the others a lesson. After his first attempt was frustrated by a couple of trigger-happy do-gooders, he was summoned by Master Jones for a private meeting. He instructed his foreman to go alone next time, leaving the more feinthearted of the hired help behind, and appeal to the sensibilities of these strangers. Cletus was informed that a horse would be loaded with whiskey and with gold, and he was to use either or both to barter for the return of his Master’s property. Failing that, he was to take the pair by surprise and bring back their heads, dragging behind him the body of that uppity nigger. Riding off, Cletus filled his flask and smiled at his good fortune in landing such a plum assignment.
On arriving at the cabin, Cletus found it empty. Sipping from his flask, he looked around but found neither hide nor hair of his charge. But he would not be alone for much longer. Out of the treeline from the east walked a lone man with red skin holding a shotgun. But neither the sight of the weapon nor the strange man’s hard stare frightened Cletus. After what he had lived through nothing scared him anymore. He took another slug of whiskey and set to bartering.
“You lookin’ for firewater there, chief? I got what you need right here, got a whole horse loaded down with it. It’s all yours too, all you gots to do is hand over that crazy nigger y’all been hiding.”
A heart-stopping mechanical click to his left made Cletus raise his hands and slowly look over. He found himself staring down the barrel of a .45 held by a well-dressed man who spoke with the careful precision that came from higher education.
“Brother Two Rivers enjoys the protection of this roof. I highly recommend that you put a little more respect in your voice when you speak to him.”Cletus was not afraid, and continued bartering. “Ain’t no call for this. I ain’t here to fight y’all. I’m here to make you rich. Gotta whole heap o’ gold in them there saddlebags. All yours too, you just gotta hand over the nigger.”
Jacob stepped in front of his target, all the while keeping his pistol pointed straight between the mercenary’s eyes. Two Rivers raised his weapon as well.“Do you really think that I care about the gold that has corrupted your heart and taken possession of your soul? I am here to do the Lord’s work, and I will not hand over my friend to be torn apart by a pack of hungry jackals”
Cletus snorted in derision. “You one of them preacher-men, ain’t ya? Ain’t no reasoning with you then. Well that ain’t no problem, ‘cause you a dead man now. Master Jones gonna hear about this. He’s gonna hear about this and he’s gonna fix you good. He always gets what’s his.”
Jacob waved towards the hired man’s horse with his pistol. “Go back to your master little dog, and give him a message from me. You tell him that his sins are an affront in the eyes of God. You tell him that his slave driving days are numbered. You tell him that the Reverend Jacob Channing says Kansas will be free.”
Cletus submitted and walked over to his horse muttering under his breath, “Crazy motherfucker.” As Jacob and Two Rivers followed him with their eyes and their guns, Cletus rode off sipping from his flask and mentally cursing the ones who had turned him away. Fancy-pants preachers, lazy-ass redskins, crazy-ass niggers that don’t know their place, he’d fix ‘em. They would see. Cletus Snopes was gonna fix them all good.
