“It’s right tiring, travelling is,” she explained.
“You go set in the parlor and I’ll fix your cot,” Mrs. Beard said.
“I’d like to help,” Lena said. But even Byron could see that she would not; that she was dead for sleep.
“You go set in the parlor,” Mrs. Beard said. “I reckon Mr. Bunch won’t mind keeping you company for a minute or two.”
“I didn’t dare leave her alone,” Byron says. Beyond the desk Hightower has not moved. “And there we was setting, at the very time when it was all coming out down town at the sheriffs office, at the very time when Brown was telling it all; about him and Christmas and the whiskey and all. Only the whiskey wasn’t much news to folks, not since he had took Brown for a partner. I reckon the only thing folks wondered about was why Christmas ever took up with Brown. Maybe it was because like not only finds like; it can’t even escape from being found by its like. Even when it’s just like in one thing, because even them two with the same like was different. Christmas dared the law to make money, and Brown dared the law because he never even had sense enough to know he was doing it. Like that night in the barbershop and him drunk and talking loud until Christmas kind of run in and dragged him out. And Mr. Maxey said, ‘What do you reckon that was he pretty near told on himself and that other one?’ and Captain McLendon said, ‘I don’t reckon about it at all,’ and Mr. Maxey said, ‘Do you reckon they was actually holding up somebody else’s liquor truck?’ and McLendon said, ‘Would it surprise you to hear that that fellow Christmas hadn’t done no worse than that in his life?’
“That’s what Brown was telling last night. But everybody knew about that. They had been saying for a good while that somebody ought to tell Miss Burden. But I reckon there wasn’t anybody that wanted to go out there and tell her, because nobody knowed what was going to happen then. I reckon there are folks born here that never even saw her. I don’t reckon I’d wanted to go out there to that old house where nobody ever saw her unless maybe it was folks in a passing wagon that would see her now and then standing in the yard in a dress and sunbonnet that some nigger women I know wouldn’t have wore for its shape and how it made her look. Or maybe she already knew it. Being a Yankee and all, maybe she didn’t mind. And then couldn’t nobody have known what was going to happen.
“And so I didn’t dare leave her alone until she was in bed. I aimed to come out and see you last night, right away. But I never dared to leave her. Them other boarders was passing up and down the hall and I didn’t know when one of them would take a notion to come in and start talking about it and tell the whole thing; I could already hear them talking about it on the porch, and her still watching me with her face all fixed to ask me again about that fire. And so I didn’t dare leave her. And we was setting there in the parlor and she couldn’t hardly keep her eyes open then, and me telling her how I would find him for her all right, only I wanted to come and talk to a preacher I knowed that could help her to get in touch with him. And her setting there with her eyes closed while I was telling her, not knowing that I knew that her and that fellow wasn’t married yet. She thought she had fooled everybody. And she asked me what kind of a man it was that I aimed to tell about her to and I told her and her setting there with her eyes closed so that at last I said, ‘You ain’t heard a word I been saying’ and she kind of roused up, but without opening her eyes, and said, ‘Can he still marry folks?’ and I said, ‘What? Can he what?’ and she said, ‘Is he still enough of a preacher to marry folks?’ ”
Hightower has not moved. He sits erect behind the desk, his forearms parallel upon the armrests of the chair. He wears neither collar nor coat. His face is at once gaunt and flabby; it is as though there were two faces, one imposed upon the other, looking out from beneath the pale, bald skull surrounded by a fringe of gray hair, from behind the twin motionless glares of his spectacles. That part of his torso visible above the desk is shapeless, almost monstrous, with a soft and sedentary obesity. He sits rigid; on his face now that expression of denial and flight has become definite. “Byron,” he says; “Byron. What is this you are telling me?”
Byron ceases. He looks quietly at the other, with an expression of commiseration and pity. “I knowed you had not heard yet. I knowed it would be for me to tell you.”
They look at one another. “What is it I haven’t heard yet?”
“About Christmas. About yesterday and Christmas. Christmas is part nigger. About him and Brown and yesterday.”
“Part negro,” Hightower says. His voice sounds light, trivial, like a thistle bloom falling into silence without a sound, without any weight. He does not move. For a moment longer he does not move. Then there seems to come over his whole body, as if its parts were mobile like face features, that shrinking and denial, and Byron sees that the still, flaccid, big face is suddenly slick with sweat. But his voice is light and calm. “What about Christmas and Brown and yesterday?” he says.
The sound of music from the distant church has long since ceased. Now there is no sound in the room save the steady shrilling of insects and the monotonous sound of Byron’s voice. Beyond the desk Hightower sits erect. Between his parallel and downturned palms and with his lower body concealed by the desk, his attitude is that of an eastern idol.
“It was yesterday morning. There was a countryman coming to town in a wagon with his family. He was the one that found the fire. No: he was the second one to get there, because he told how there was already one fellow there when he broke down the door. He told about how he come into sight of the house and he said to his wife how it was a right smart of smoke coming out of that kitchen, and about how the wagon come on and then his wife said, ‘That house is afire.’ And I reckon maybe he stopped the wagon and they set there in the wagon for a while, looking at the smoke, and I reckon that after a while he said, ‘It looks like it is.’ And I reckon it was his wife that made him get down and go and see. ‘They don’t know it’s afire,’ she said, I reckon. ‘You go up there and tell them.’ And he got out of the wagon and went up onto the porch and stood there, hollering ‘Hello. Hello’ for a while. He told how he could hear the fire then, inside the house, and then he hit the door a lick with his shoulder and went in and then he found the one that had found that fire first. It was Brown. But the countryman didn’t know that. He just said it was a drunk man in the hall that looked like he had just finished falling down the stairs, and the countryman said, ‘Your house is afire, mister,’ before he realised how drunk the man was. And he told how the drunk man kept on saying how there wasn’t nobody upstairs and that the upstairs was all afire anyway and there wasn’t any use trying to save anything from up there.
“But the countryman knew there couldn’t be that much fire upstairs because the fire was all back toward the kitchen. And besides, the man was too drunk to know, anyway. And he told how he suspected there was something wrong from the way the drunk man was trying to keep him from going upstairs. So he started upstairs, and the drunk fellow trying to hold him back, and he shoved the drunk man away and went on up the stairs. He told how the drunk man tried to follow him, still telling him how it wasn’t anything upstairs, and he said that when he come back down again and thought about the drunk fellow, he was gone. But I reckon it was some time before he remembered to think about Brown again. Because he went on up the stairs and begun hollering again, opening the doors, and then he opened the right door and he found her.”
He ceases. Then there is no sound in the room save the insects. Beyond the open window the steady insects pulse and beat, drowsy and myriad. “Found her,” Hightower says. “It was Miss Burden he found.” He does not move. Byron does not look at him, he might be contemplating his hands upon his lap while he talks.
“She was lying on the floor. Her head had been cut pretty near off; a lady with the beginning of gray hair. The man said how he stood there and he could hear the fire and there was smoke in the room itself now, like it had done followed him in. And how he was afraid to try to pick her u
p and carry her out because her head might come clean off. And then he said how he run back down the stairs again and out the front without even noticing that the drunk fellow was gone, and down to the road and told his wife to whip the team on to the nearest telephone and call for the sheriff too. And how he run back around the house to the cistern and he said he was already drawing up a bucket of water before he realised how foolish that was, with the whole back end of the house afire good now. So he run back into the house and up the stairs again and into the room and jerked a cover off the bed and rolled her onto it and caught up the corners and swung it onto his back like a sack of meal and carried it out of the house and laid it down under a tree. And he said that what he was scared of happened. Because the cover fell open and she was laying on her side, facing one way, and her head was turned clean around like she was looking behind her. And he said how if she could just have done that when she was alive, she might not have been doing it now.”
Byron ceases and looks, glances once, at the man beyond the desk. Hightower has not moved. His face about the twin blank glares of the spectacles is sweating quietly and steadily. “And the sheriff come out, and the fire department come too. But there wasn’t nothing it could do because there wasn’t any water for the hose. And that old house burned all evening and I could see the smoke from the mill and I showed it to her when she come up, because I didn’t know then. And they brought Miss Burden to town, and there was a paper at the bank that she had told them would tell what to do with her when she died. It said how she had a nephew in the North where she come from, her folks come from. And they telegraphed the nephew and in two hours they got the answer that the nephew would pay a thousand dollars’ reward for who done it.
“And Christmas and Brown were both gone. The sheriff found out how somebody had been living in that cabin, and then right off everybody begun to tell about Christmas and Brown, that had kept it a secret long enough for one of them or maybe both of them to murder that lady. But nobody could find either one of them until last night. The countryman didn’t know it was Brown that he found drunk in the house. Folks thought that him and Christmas had both run, maybe. And then last night Brown showed up: He was sober then, and he come onto the square about eight o’clock, wild, yelling about how it was Christmas that killed her and making his claim on that thousand dollars. They got the officers and took him to the sheriff’s office and they told him the reward would be his all right soon as he caught Christmas and proved he done it. And so Brown told. File told about how Christmas had been living with Miss Burden like man and wife for three years, until Brown and him teamed up. At first, when he moved out to live in the cabin with Christmas, Brown said that Christmas told him he had been sleeping in the cabin all the time. Then he said how one night he hadn’t gone to sleep and he told how he heard Christmas get up out of bed and come and stand over Brown’s cot for a while, like he was listening, and then he tiptoed to the door and opened it quiet and went out. And Brown said how he got up and followed Christmas and saw him go up to the big house and go in the back door, like either it was left open for him or he had a key to it. Then Brown come on back to the cabin and got into bed. But he said how he couldn’t go to sleep for laughing, thinking about how smart Christmas thought he was. And he was laying there when Christmas come back in about a hour. Then he said how he couldn’t keep from laughing no longer, and he says to Christmas, ‘You old son of a gun.’ Then he said how Christmas got right still in the dark, and how he laid there laughing, telling Christmas how he wasn’t such a slick one after all and joking Christmas about gray hair and about how if Christmas wanted him to, he would take it week about with him paying the house rent.
“Then he told how he found out that night that sooner or later Christmas was going to kill her or somebody. He said he was laying there, laughing, thinking that Christmas would just maybe get back in bed again, when Christmas struck a match. Then Brown said he quit laughing and he laid there and watched Christmas light the lantern and set it on the box by Brown’s cot. Then Brown said how he wasn’t laughing and he laid there and Christmas standing there by the cot, looking down at him. ‘Now you got a good joke,’ Christmas says. ‘You can get a good laugh, telling them in the barbershop tomorrow night.’ And Brown said he didn’t know that Christmas was mad and that he kind of said something back to Christmas, not meaning to make him mad, and Christmas said, in that still way of his: ‘You don’t get enough sleep. You stay awake too much. Maybe you ought to sleep more,’ and Brown said, ‘How much more?’ and Christmas said, ‘Maybe from now on. And Brown said how he realised then that Christmas was mad and that it wasn’t no time to joke him, and he said, ‘Ain’t we buddies? What would I want to tell something that ain’t none of my business? Can’t you trust me?’ and Christmas said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t care, neither. But you can trust me.’ And he looked at Brown. ‘Can’t you trust me?’ and Brown said he said ‘Yes.’
And he told then about how he was afraid that Christmas would kill Miss Burden some night, and the sheriff asked him how come he never reported his fear and Brown said he thought how maybe by not saying nothing he could stay out there and prevent it, without having to bother the officers with it; and the sheriff kind of grunted and said that was thoughtful of Brown and that Miss Burden would sholy appreciate it if she knowed. And then I reckon it begun to dawn on Brown that he had a kind of rat smell too. Because he started in telling about how it was Miss Burden that bought Christmas that auto and how he would try to persuade Christmas to quit selling whiskey before he got them both into trouble; and the officers watching him and him talking faster and faster and more and more; about how he had been awake early Saturday morning and saw Christmas get up about dawn and go out. And Brown knew where Christmas was going, and about seven o’clock Christmas come back into the cabin and stood there, looking at Brown. ‘I’ve done it,’ Christmas says. ‘Done what?’ Brown says. ‘Go up to the house and see,’ Christmas says. And Brown said how he was afraid then, but that he never suspected the truth. He just said that at the outside all he expected was that maybe Christmas just beat her some. And he said how Christmas went out again and then he got up and dressed and he was making a fire to cook his breakfast when he happened to look out the door and he said how all the kitchen was afire up at the big house.
“ ‘What time was this?’ the sheriff says.
“ ‘About eight o’clock, I reckon,’ Brown says. ‘When a man would naturally be getting up. Unless he is rich. And God knows I ain’t that.’
“ ‘And that fire wasn’t reported until nigh eleven o’clock,’ the sheriff says. ‘And that house was still burning at three P.M. You mean to say a old wooden house, even a big one, would need six hours to burn down in?’
“And Brown was setting there, looking this way and that, with them fellows watching him in a circle, hemming him in. ‘I’m just telling you the truth,’ Brown says. ‘That’s what you asked for: He was looking this way and that, jerking his head. Then he kind of hollered: ‘How do I know what time it was? Do you expect a man doing the work of a nigger slave at a sawmill to be rich enough to own a watch?’
“ ‘You ain’t worked at no sawmill nor at anything else in six weeks,’ the marshal says. ‘And a man that can afford to ride around all day long in a new car can afford to pass the courthouse often enough to see the clock and keep up with the time.’
“ ‘It wasn’t none of my car, I tell you!’ Brown says. ‘It was his. She bought it and give it to him; the woman he murdered give it to him.’
“ ‘That’s neither here nor there,’ the sheriff says. ‘Let him tell the rest of it.’
“And so Brown went on then, talking louder and louder and faster and faster, like he was trying to hide Joe Brown behind what he was telling on Christmas until Brown could get his chance to make a grab at that thousand dollars. It beats all how some folks think that making or getting money is a kind of game where there are not any rules at all. He told about how even when he saw the fir
e, he never dreamed that she would still be in the house, let alone dead. He said how he never even thought to look into the house at all; that he was just figuring on how to put out the fire.
“ ‘And that was round eight A.M.,’ the sheriff says. ‘Or so you claim. And Hamp Waller’s wife never reported that fire until nigh eleven. It took you a right smart while to find out you couldn’t put out that fire with your bare hands.’ And Brown sitting there in the middle of them (they had locked the door, but the windows was lined with folks’ faces against the glass) with his eyes going this way and that and his lip lifted away from his teeth. ‘Hamp says that after he broke in the door, there was already a man inside that house,’ the sheriff says. ‘And that that man tried to keep him from going up the stairs.’ And him setting there in the center of them, with his eyes going and going.
“I reckon he was desperate by then. I reckon he could not only see that thousand dollars getting further and further away from him, but that he could begin to see somebody else getting it. I reckon it was like he could see himself with that thousand dollars right in his hand for somebody else to have the spending of it. Because they said it was like he had been saving what he told them next for just such a time as this. Like he had knowed that if it come to a pinch, this would save him, even if it was almost worse for a white man to admit what he would have to admit than to be accused of the murder itself. ‘That’s right,’ he says. ‘Go on. Accuse me. Accuse the white man that’s trying to help you with what he knows. Accuse the white man and let the nigger go free. Accuse the white and let the nigger run.’