From the anthology Delta Blues edited by Carolyn Haines
“What His Hand Had Been Waiting For”
by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly
July, 1927
They left the dead looters in the house and were striding toward their horses, Ham Johnson reloading his .30-30, when they heard what sounded like a cat.
“Ain’t no cat,” said Ingersoll. “Naw.” Ham clicked a cartridge into the port of his rifle. He clicked in another.
They followed the mewing past the house’s slanted silhouette—the owners smart enough to leave the doors and windows open, which had let the flood waters swirl through. Behind the house, a shade tree, now like something dipped in batter halfway up. Snagged in the top branches, a coop filled with dead chickens.
Anyway, Ingersoll was right about it not being a cat. It was a baby. The men stared. A bushel basket on a low branch held the red-faced thing. In the mud, beneath the basket, a shred of blanket it’d kicked away.
“Mother of God,” Ingersoll said.
