“One hand,” he said. “Draw. You shuffle, I cut, this boy deals. Five hundred dollars against Sibbey. And we’ll settle this nigger business once and for all too. If you win, you buy Tennie; if I win, I buy that boy of yours. The price will be the same for each one: three hundred dollars.”
“Win?” Uncle Buck said. “The one that wins buys the niggers?”
“Wins Sibbey, damn it!” Mr Hubert said. “Wins Sibbey! What the hell else are we setting up till midnight arguing about? The lowest hand wins Sibbey and buys the niggers.”
“All right,” Uncle Buck said. “I’ll buy the damn girl then and we’ll call the rest of this foolishness off.”
“Hah,” Mr Hubert said again. “This is the most serious foolishness you ever took part in in your life. No. You said you wanted your chance, and now you’ve got it. Here it is, right here on this table, waiting on you.”
So Uncle Buck shuffled the cards and Mr Hubert cut them. Then he took up the deck and dealt in turn until Uncle Buck and Mr Hubert had five. And Uncle Buck looked at his hand a long time and then said two cards and he gave them to him, and Mr Hubert looked at his hand quick and said one card and he gave it to him and Mr Hubert flipped his discard onto the two which Uncle Buck had discarded and slid the new card into his hand and opened it out and looked at it quick again and closed it and looked at Uncle Buck and said, “Well? Did you help them threes?”
“No,” Uncle Buck said.
“Well I did,” Mr Hubert said. He shot his hand across the table so that the cards fell face-up in front of Uncle Buck and they were three kings and two fives, and said, “By God, Buck McCaslin, you have met your match at last.”
“And that was all?” Uncle Buddy said. It was late then, near sunset; they would be at Mr Hubert’s in another fifteen minutes.
“Yes, sir,” he said, telling that too: how Uncle Buck waked him at daylight and he climbed out a window and got the pony and left, and how Uncle Buck said that if they pushed him too close in the meantime, he would climb down the gutter too and hide in the woods until Uncle Buddy arrived.
“Hah,” Uncle Buddy said. “Was Tomey’s Turl there?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “He was waiting in the stable when I got the pony. He said, ‘Aint they settled it yet?’ ”
“And what did you say?” Uncle Buddy said.
“I said, ‘Uncle Buck looks like he’s settled. But Uncle Buddy aint got here yet.’ ”
“Hah,” Uncle Buddy said.
And that was about all. They reached the house. Maybe Uncle Buck was watching them, but if he was, he never showed himself, never came out of the woods. Miss Sophonsiba was nowhere in sight either, so at least Uncle Buck hadn’t quite given up; at least he hadn’t asked her yet. And he and Uncle Buddy and Mr Hubert ate supper and they came in from the kitchen and cleared the table, leaving only the lamp on it and the deck of cards. Then it was just like last night, except that Uncle Buddy had no necktie and Mr Hubert wore clothes now instead of a nightshirt and it was a shaded lamp on the table instead of a candle, and Mr Hubert sitting at his end of the table with the deck in his hands, riffling the edges with his thumb and looking at Uncle Buddy. Then he tapped the edges even and set the deck out in the middle of the table, under the lamp, and folded his arms on the edge of the table and leaned forward a little on the table, looking at Uncle Buddy, who was sitting at his end of the table with his hands in his lap, all one gray color, like an old gray rock or a stump with gray moss on it, that still, with his round white head like Uncle Buck’s but he didn’t blink like Uncle Buck and he was a little thicker than Uncle Buck, as if from sitting down so much watching food cook, as if the things he cooked had made him a little thicker than he would have been and the things he cooked with, the flour and such, had made him all one same quiet color.
“Little toddy before we start?” Mr Hubert said.
“I dont drink,” Uncle Buddy said.
“That’s right,” Mr Hubert said. “I knew there was something else besides just being woman-weak that makes ’Filus seem human. But no matter.” He batted his eyes twice at Uncle Buddy. “Buck McCaslin against the land and niggers you have heard me promise as Sophonsiba’s dowry on the day she marries. If I beat you, ’Filus marries Sibbey without any dowry. If you beat me, you get ’Filus. But I still get the three hundred dollars ’Filus owes me for Tennie. Is that correct?”
“That’s correct,” Uncle Buddy said.
“Stud,” Mr Hubert said. “One hand. You to shuffle, me to cut, this boy to deal.”
“No,” Uncle Buddy said. “Not Cass. He’s too young. I dont want him mixed up in any gambling.”
“Hah,” Mr Hubert said. “It’s said that a man playing cards with Amodeus McCaslin aint gambling. But no matter.” But he was still looking at Uncle Buddy; he never even turned his head when he spoke: “Go to the back door and holler. Bring the first creature that answers, animal mule or human, that can deal ten cards.”
So he went to the back door. But he didn’t have to call because Tomey’s Turl was squatting against the wall just outside the door, and they returned to the dining-room where Mr Hubert still sat with his arms folded on his side of the table and Uncle Buddy sat with his hands in his lap on his side and the deck of cards face-down under the lamp between them. Neither of them even looked up when he and Tomey’s Turl entered. “Shuffle,” Mr Hubert said. Uncle Buddy shuffled and set the cards back under the lamp and put his hands back into his lap and Mr Hubert cut the deck and folded his arms back onto the table-edge. “Deal,” he said. Still neither he nor Uncle Buddy looked up. They just sat there while Tomey’s Turl’s saddle-colored hands came into the light and took up the deck and dealt, one card face-down to Mr Hubert and one face-down to Uncle Buddy, and one face-up to Mr Hubert and it was a king, and one face-up to Uncle Buddy and it was a six.
“Buck McCaslin against Sibbey’s dowry,” Mr Hubert said. “Deal.” And the hand dealt Mr Hubert a card and it was a three, and Uncle Buddy a card and it was a two. Mr Hubert looked at Uncle Buddy. Uncle Buddy rapped once with his knuckles on the table.
“Deal,” Mr Hubert said. And the hand dealt Mr Hubert a card and it was another three, and Uncle Buddy a card and it was a four. Mr Hubert looked at Uncle Buddy’s cards. Then he looked at Uncle Buddy and Uncle Buddy rapped on the table again with his knuckles.
“Deal,” Mr Hubert said, and the hand dealt him an ace and Uncle Buddy a five and now Mr Hubert just sat still. He didn’t look at anything or move for a whole minute; he just sat there and watched Uncle Buddy put one hand onto the table for the first time since he shuffled and pinch up one corner of his face-down card and look at it and then put his hand back into his lap. “Check,” Mr Hubert said.
“I’ll bet you them two niggers,” Uncle Buddy said. He didn’t move either. He sat there just like he sat in the wagon or on a horse or in the rocking chair he cooked from.
“Against what?” Mr Hubert said.
“Against the three hundred dollars Theophilus owes you for Tennie, and the three hundred you and Theophilus agreed on for Tomey’s Turl,” Uncle Buddy said.
“Hah,” Mr Hubert said, only it wasn’t loud at all this time, nor even short. Then he said “Hah. Hah. Hah” and not loud either. Then he said, “Well.” Then he said, “Well, well.” Then he said: “We’ll check up for a minute. If I win, you take Sibbey without dowry and the two niggers, and I dont owe ’Filus anything. If you win——”
“—Theophilus is free. And you owe him the three hundred dollars for Tomey’s Turl,” Uncle Buddy said.
“That’s just if I call you,” Mr Hubert said. “If I dont call you, ’Filus wont owe me nothing and I wont owe ’Filus nothing, unless I take that nigger which I have been trying to explain to you and him both for years that I wont have on my place. We will be right back where all this foolishness started from, except for that. So what it comes down to is, I either got to give a nigger away, or risk buying one that you done already admitted you cant keep at home.” Then he sto
pped talking. For about a minute it was like he and Uncle Buddy had both gone to sleep. Then Mr Hubert picked up his face-down card and turned it over. It was another three, and Mr Hubert sat there without looking at anything at all, his fingers beating a tattoo, slow and steady and not very loud, on the table. “H’m,” he said. “And you need a trey and there aint but four of them and I already got three. And you just shuffled. And I cut afterward. And if I call you, I will have to buy that nigger. Who dealt these cards, Amodeus?” Only he didn’t wait to be answered. He reached out and tilted the lamp-shade, the light moving up Tomey’s Turl’s arms that were supposed to be black but were not quite white, up his Sunday shirt that was supposed to be white but wasn’t quite either, that he put on every time he ran away just as Uncle Buck put on the necktie each time he went to bring him back, and on to his face; and Mr Hubert sat there, holding the lampshade and looking at Tomey’s Turl. Then he tilted the shade back down and took up his cards and turned them face-down and pushed them toward the middle of the table. “I pass, Amodeus,” he said.
4
He was still too worn out for sleep to sit on a horse, so this time he and Uncle Buddy and Tennie all three rode in the wagon, while Tomey’s Turl led the pony from old Jake. And when they got home just after daylight, this time Uncle Buddy never even had time to get breakfast started and the fox never even got out of the crate, because the dogs were right there in the room. Old Moses went right into the crate with the fox, so that both of them went right on through the back end of it. That is, the fox went through, because when Uncle Buddy opened the door to come in, old Moses was still wearing most of the crate around his neck until Uncle Buddy kicked it off of him. Sothey just made one run, across the front gallery and around the house and they could hear the fox’s claws when he went scrabbling up the lean-pole, onto the roof—a fine race while it lasted, but the tree was too quick.
“What in damn’s hell do you mean,” Uncle Buddy said, “casting that damn thing with all the dogs right in the same room?”
“Damn the fox,” Uncle Buck said. “Go on and start breakfast. It seems to me I’ve been away from home a whole damn month.”
The Fire and the Hearth
Chapter One
First, in order to take care of George Wilkins once and for all, he had to hide his own still. And not only that, he had to do it singlehanded—dismantle it in the dark and transport it without help to some place far enough away and secret enough to escape the subsequent uproar and excitement and there conceal it. It was the prospect of this which had enraged him, compounding in advance the physical weariness and exhaustion which would be the night’s aftermath. It was not the temporary interruption of business; the business had been interfered with once before about five years ago and he had dealt with that crisis as promptly and efficiently as he was dealing with this present one—and since which time that other competitor, whose example George Wilkins might quite possibly follow provided Carothers Edmonds were as correctly informed about his intentions as he professed to be about his bank account, had been plowing and chopping and picking cotton which was not his on the State penal farm at Parchman.
And it was not the loss of revenue which the interruption entailed. He was sixty-seven years old; he already had more money in the bank now than he would ever spend, more than Carothers Edmonds himself, provided a man believed Carothers Edmonds when he tried to draw anything extra in the way of cash or supplies from the commissary. It was the fact that he must do it all himself, singlehanded; had to come up from the field after a long day in the dead middle of planting time and stable and feed Edmonds’ mules and eat his own supper and then put his own mare to the single wagon and drive three miles to the still and dismantle it by touch in the dark and carry it another mile to the best place he could think of where it would be reasonably safe after the excitement started, probably getting back home with hardly enough of the night left to make it worth while going to bed before time to return to the field until the time would be ripe to speak the one word to Edmonds;—all this alone and unassisted because the two people from whom he might reasonably and logically have not only expected but demanded help were completely interdict: his wife who was too old and frail for such, even if he could have trusted not her fidelity but her discretion; and as for his daughter, to let her get any inkling of what he was about, he might just as well have asked George Wilkins himself to help him hide the still. It was not that he had anything against George personally, despite the mental exasperation and the physical travail he was having to undergo when he should have been at home in bed asleep. If George had just stuck to farming the land which Edmonds had allotted him he would just as soon Nat married George as anyone else, sooner than most of the nigger bucks he knew. But he was not going to let George Wilkins or anyone else move not only into the section where he had lived for going on seventy years but onto the very place he had been born on and set up competition in a business which he had established and nursed carefully and discreetly for twenty of them, ever since he had fired up for his first run not a mile from Zack Edmonds’ kitchen door;—secretly indeed, for no man needed to tell him what Zack Edmonds or his son, Carothers (or Old Cass Edmonds either, for that matter), would do about it if they ever found it out. He wasn’t afraid that George would cut into his established trade, his old regular clientele, with the hog swill which George had begun to turn out two months ago and call whisky. But George Wilkins was a fool innocent of discretion, who sooner or later would be caught, whereupon for the next ten years every bush on the Edmonds place would have a deputy sheriff squatting behind it from sundown to sunup every night. And he not only didn’t want a fool for a son-in-law, he didn’t intend to have a fool living on the same place he lived on. If George had to go to jail to alleviate that condition, that was between George and Roth Edmonds.
But it was about over now. Another hour or so and he would be back home, getting whatever little of sleep there might be left of the night before time to return to the field to pass the day until the right moment to speak to Edmonds. Probably the outrage would be gone by then, and he would have only the weariness to contend with. But it was his own field, though he neither owned it nor wanted to nor even needed to. He had been cultivating it for forty-five years, since before Carothers Edmonds was born even, plowing and planting and working it when and how he saw fit (or maybe not even doing that, maybe sitting through a whole morning on his front gallery, looking at it and thinking if that’s what he felt like doing), with Edmonds riding up on his mare maybe three times a week to look at the field, and maybe once during the season stopping long enough to give him advice about it which he completely ignored, ignoring not only the advice but the very voice which gave it, as though the other had not spoken even, whereupon Edmonds would ride on and he would continue with whatever he had been doing, the incident already forgotten condoned and forgiven, the necessity and the time having been served. So the day would pass at last. Then he would approach Edmonds and speak his word and it would be like dropping the nickel into the slot machine and pulling the lever: all he would have to do then would be just to watch it.
He knew exactly where he intended to go, even in the darkness. He had been born on this land, twenty-five years before the Edmonds who now owned it. He had worked on it ever since he got big enough to hold a plow straight; he had hunted over every foot of it during his childhood and youth and his manhood too, up to the time when he stopped hunting, not because he could no longer walk a day’s or a night’s hunt, but because he felt that the pursuit of rabbits and ’possums for meat was no longer commensurate with his status as not only the oldest man but the oldest living person on the Edmonds plantation, the oldest McCaslin descendant even though in the world’s eye he descended not from McCaslins but from McCaslin slaves, almost as old as old Isaac McCaslin who lived in town, supported by what Roth Edmonds chose to give him, who would own the land and all on it if his just rights were only known, if people just knew how old Cass Edmonds, this one?
??s grandfather, had beat him out of his patrimony; almost as old as old Isaac, almost, as old Isaac was, coeval with old Buck and Buddy McCaslin who had been alive when their father, Carothers McCaslin, got the land from the Indians back in the old time when men black and white were men.
He was in the creek bottom now. Curiously enough, visibility seemed to have increased, as if the rank sunless jungle of cypress and willow and brier, instead of increasing obscurity, had solidified it into the concrete components of trunk and branch, leaving the air, space, free of it and in comparison lighter, penetrable to vision, to the mare’s sight anyway, enabling her to see-saw back and forth among the trunks and the impassable thickets. Then he saw the place he sought—a squat, flat-topped, almost symmetrical mound rising without reason from the floorlike flatness of the valley. The white people called it an Indian mound. One day five or six years ago a group of white men, including two women, most of them wearing spectacles and all wearing khaki clothes which had patently lain folded on a store shelf twenty-four hours ago, came with picks and shovels and jars and phials of insect repellant and spent a day digging about it while most of the people, men women and children, came at some time during the day and looked quietly on; later—within the next two or three days, in fact—he was to remember with almost horrified amazement the cold and contemptuous curiosity with which he himself had watched them.
But that would come later. Now he was merely busy. He could not see his watch-face, but he knew it was almost midnight. He stopped the wagon beside the mound and unloaded the still—the copper-lined kettle which had cost him more than he still liked to think about despite his ingrained lifelong scorn of inferior tools—and the worm and his pick and shovel. The spot he sought was a slight overhang on one face of the mound; in a sense one side of his excavation was already dug for him, needing only to be enlarged a little, the earth working easily under the invisible pick, whispering easily and steadily to the invisible shovel until the orifice was deep enough for the worm and kettle to fit into it, when—and it was probably only a sigh but it sounded to him louder than an avalanche, as though the whole mound had stooped roaring down at him—the entire overhang sloughed. It drummed on the hollow kettle, covering it and the worm, and boiled about his feet and, as he leaped backward and tripped and fell, about his body too, hurling clods and dirt at him, striking him a final blow squarely in the face with something larger than a clod—a blow not vicious so much as merely heavy-handed, a sort of final admonitory pat from the spirit of darkness and solitude, the old earth, perhaps the old ancestors themselves. Because, sitting up, getting his breath again at last, gasping and blinking at the apparently unchanged shape of the mound which seemed to loom poised above him in a long roaring wave of silence like a burst of jeering and prolonged laughter, his hand found the object which had struck him and learned it in the blind dark—a fragment of an earthenware vessel which, intact, must have been as big as a churn and which even as he lifted it crumbled again and deposited in his palm, as though it had been handed to him, a single coin.