“It was too late fer him to turn back, anyhow, but I don’t reckon he would have ef they’d been time. He jest spurred down the ridge and rid in amongst ’em, scatterin’ cook-fires and guns and men, shoutin’, ‘Surround, ’em, boys! Ef you move, you air dead men.’ One or two of ’em made to break away, but Cunnel drawed his pistols and let ’em off, and they come back and scrouged in amongst the others, and thar they set, still a-holdin’ their dinner, when Zeb come up. And that was the way we found ’em when we got thar ten minutes later.” Old man Falls spat again, neatly and brownly, and ‘he chuckled. His eyes shone like periwinkles. “That cawfee was sho’ mighty fine,” he added.
“And thar we was, with a passel of prisoners we didn’t have no use fer. We held ’em all that day and et their grub; and when night come we taken and throwed their muskets into the branch and taken their ammuninon and the rest of the grub and put a gyard on their hosses; then the rest of us bid down. And all that night we laid thar in them fine Yankee blankets, listenin’ to them prisoners sneakin’ away one at a time, slippin’ down the bank into the branch and wading off. Time to time one would slip er make a splash er somethin’; then they’d all git right still fer a spell. But putty soon we’d hear ’em at it again, crawlin’ through the bushes to’a’ds the water, and us layin’ thar with blanket-aidges held agin our faces. Hit was nigh dawn ’fore the last one had snuck off in a way that suited ’im.
“Then Cunnel from whar he was a-Iayin’ let out a yell them pore critters could hear fer a mile.
“‘Go it, Yank; he says, ‘and look out fer moccasins!’
“Next mawnin’ we saddled up and loaded our plunder and ever’ man taken him a hoss and lit out fer home. We’d been home two weeks and Cunnel had his cawn laid by when we heard ’bout Van Dorn ridin’ into Holly Springs and burnin’ Grant’s sto’s. Seems like he never needed no help from us, noways.” He chewed his tobacco for a time, quietly retrospective, reliving, in the company of men now dust with the dust for which they had, unwittingly perhaps, fought, those gallant, pinch-bellied days into which few who now trod that earth could enter with him.
Old Bayard shook the ash from his cigar. “Will,” he said, “what the devil were you folks fighting about, anyhow?”
“Bayard;” old man Falls answered, “be damned ef I ever did know.”
After old man Falls had departed with his small parcel and his innocently bulging cheek, old Bayard sat and smoked his cigar. Presently he raised his hand and touched the wen on his face, but lightly, remembering old man Falls’ parting stricture; and recalling this, the thought that it might not yet be too late, that he might yet remove the paste with water, followed.
He rose and crossed to the lavatory in the corner of the room. Above it was fixed a small cabinet with a mirror in the door, and in it he examined the black spot on his cheek, touching it again with his fingers, then examining his hand. Yes, it might still come off. . . . But be damned if he would; be damned to a man who didn’t know his own mind. He flung his cigar away and quitted the room and tramped through the lobby toward the door where his chair sat. But before he reached the door he turned about and came up to the cashier’s window, behind which the cashier sat in a geen eyeshade.
“Res,” he said.
The cashier looked up. “Yes, Colonel?”
“Who is that damn boy that hangs around here, looking through that window all day?” Old Bayard lowered his voice within a pitch or so of an ordinary conversational tone.
“What boy, Colonel?”
Old Bayard pointed, and the cashier raised himself on his stool and peered over the partition and saw, beyond the indicated window, a boy of ten or twelve watching him with an innocent and casual air. “Oh. That’s Will Beard’s boy, from up at the boarding-house,” he shouted. “Friend of Byron’s, I think.”
“What’s he doing around here? Every time I walk through here, there he is looking in that window. What does he want?”
“Maybe he’s a bank robber,” the cashier suggested.
“What?” Old Bayard cupped his ear fiercely in his palm.
“Maybe he’s a bank robber,” the other shouted, leaning forward on his stool. Old Bayard snorted and tramped violently on and slammed his chair back against the door. The cashier sat lumped and shapeless on his stool, rumbling deep within his gross body. He said without turning his head: “Colonel’s let Will Falls treat him with that salve.” Snopes at his desk made no reply; did not raise his head. After a time the boy moved, and drifted casually and innocently away.
Virgil Beard now possessed a pistol that projected a stream of ammoniac water excruciatingly painful to the eyes, a small magic lantern, and an ex-candy showcase in which he kept birds’ eggs and an assortment of insects that had died slowly on pins, and a modest hoard of nickels and dimes.
In July Snopes had changed his domicile. He avoided Virgil on the street and so for two weeks he had not seen the boy at all, until one evening after supper he emerged from the front door of his new abode and found Virgil sitting blandly and politely on the front steps.
“Hi, Mr. Snopes,” Virgil said.
6
Miss Jenny’s exasperation and rage when old Bayard arrived home that afternoon was unbounded. “You stubborn old fool,” she stormed, “can’t Bayard kill you fast enough that you’ve got to let that old quack of a Will Falls give you blood poisoning? After what Dr. Alford told you, when even Loosh Peabody, who thinks a course of quinine or calomel will cure anything from a broken neck to chilblains, agreed with him? I’ll declare, sometimes I just lose patience with you folks; wonder what crime I seem to be expiating by having to live with you. Soon as Bayard sort of quiets down and I can quit jumping every time the ’phone rings, you have to go and let that old pauper daub your face up with axle grease and lampblack. I’m a good mind to pack up and get out, and start life over in some place where they never heard of a Sartoris.” She raged and stormed on; old Bayard raged in reply, with violent words and profane, and their voices swelled and surged through the house until Elnora and Simon in the kitchen moved furtively, with cocked ears. Finally old Bayard tramped from the house and mounted his horse and rode away, leaving Miss Jenny to wear her rage out upon the empty air, and then there was peace for a time.
But at supper the storm brewed and burst again. Behind the swing door of the butler’s pantry Simon could hear them, and young Bayard too, trying to shout them down. “Let up, let up,” he howled, “for God’s sake. I can’t hear myself chew, even.”
“And you’re another one.” Miss Jenny turned promptly upon him. “You’re just as trying as he is. You and your stiff-necked, sullen ways. Helling around the country in that car just because you think there may be somebody who cares a whoop whether or not you break your worthless neck, and then coming in to the supper table smelling like a stable hand! Just because you went to a war. Do you think you’re the only person in the world that ever went to a war? Do you reckon that when my Bayard came back from The War that he made a nuisance of himself to everybody that had to live with him? But he was a gentleman: he raised the devil like a gentleman, not like you Mississippi country people. Clod hoppers. Look what he did with just a horse,” she added. “He didn’t need any flying machine.”
“Look at the little two-bit war he went to,” young Bayard rejoined, “a war that was so sorry that grandfather wouldn’t even stay up there in Virginia where it was.”
“And nobody wanted him at it,” Miss Jenny retorted, “a man that would get mad just because his men deposed him and elected a better colonel in his place. Got mad and came back to the country to lead a bunch of red-neck brigands.”
“Little two-bit war,” young Bayard repeated, “and on a horse. Anybody can go to a war on a horse. No chance for him to do much of anything.”
“At least he got himself decently killed,” Miss Jenny snapped. “He did more with a horse than you could do
with that aeroplane.”
“Sho,” Simon breathed against the pantry door. “Ain’t dey gwine it? Takes white folks to sho’ ’nough quoil.”
And so it surged and ebbed through the succeeding days; wore itself out, then surged again when old Bayard returned home with another application of salve. But by this time Simon was having troubles of his own, troubles on which he finally consulted old Bayard one afternoon. Young Bayard was laid up in bed with his crushed ribs, with Miss Jenny mothering him with savage and cherishing affection and Miss Benbow to visit with him and read aloud to him, and Simon had come into his own again. The top hat and the duster came down from the nail, and old Bayard’s cigars depleted daily by one, and the fat matched horses spent their accumulated laziness between home and the bank, before which Simon swung them to a halt each afternoon as of old, with his clamped cigar and smartly-furled whip and all theatrics of the fine moment. “De ottomobile,” Simon philosophized, “is all right fer pleasure en excitement, but fer de genu-wine gentlemun tone, dey am t but one thing: dat’s hosses.”
Thus Simon’s opportunity came ready to his hand, and once they were clear of town and the team had settled into its gait, he took advantage of it.
“Well, Cunnel,” he began, “looks like me en you’s got to make some financial ’rangements.”
“What?” Old Bayard brought his attention back from where it wandered about the familiar planted fields and the blue, shining hills beyond.
“I says it looks like me en you’s got to arrange erbout a little cash money.”
“Much obliged, Simon,” old Bayard answered, “but I don’t need, any money right now. Much obliged, though.”
Simon laughed heartily. “I declare, Cunnel, you sho’ is comical. Rich man like you needin’ money!” Again he laughed, with unctuous and abortive heartiness. “Yes, suh, you sho’ is comical.” Then he ceased laughing and became engrossed with the horses for a moment. Twins they were: Roosevelt and Taft, with sleek hides and broad, comfortable buttocks. “You, Taf’ lean on dat collar! Laziness gwine go in on you someday en kill you, she.” Old Bayard sat watching his apelike head and the swaggering tilt of the top hat. Simon turned his wizened, plausible face over his shoulder again. “But sho’ ’nough, now, we is got to quiet dem niggers somehow.”
“What have they done? Can’t they find anybody to take their money?”
“Well, suh, hit’s like dis,” Simon explained. “Hit’s kind of all ’round cu’i’s. You see, dey been collectin’ buildin’ money fer dat church whut burnt down, en ez dey got de money up, dey turnt hit over ter me, whut wid my ’ficial position on de church boa’d en bein’ I wuz a member of de bes’ fambly round here. Dat ’uz erbout las’ Chris’mus time, en now dey wants de money back.”
“That’s strange,” old Bayard said.
“Yessuh,” Simon agreed readily. “Hit struck me jes’ ’zackly dat way.”
“Well, if they insist, I reckon you’d better give it back to ’em.”
“Now, you’s gittin’ to it.” Simon turned his head again; his manner was confidential, and he exploded his bomb in a hushed, melodramatic tone: “De money’s gone.”
“Dammit, I know that,” old Bayard answered, his levity suddenly gone. “Where is it?”
“I went and put it out,” Simon told him, and his tone was still confidential, with a little pained astonishment at the world’s obtuseness. “And now dem niggers ’cusin’ me of stealin’ it.”
“Do you mean to tell me you, took charge of money belonging to other people, and then went and loaned it to somebody else?”
“You does de same thing ev’ry day,” Simon answered. “Ain’t lendin’ money yo’ main business?”
Old Bayard snorted violently. “You get that money back and give it to those niggers, or you’ll be in jail, you hear?”
“You talks jes’ like dem uppity town niggers,” Simon told him in a pained tone. “Dat money done been put out, now,” he reminded his patron.
“Get it back. Haven’t you got collateral for it?”
“Is I got which?”
“Something worth the money, to keep until the money is paid back.”
“Yessuh, I got dat.” Simon chuckled again, unctuously, a satyrish chuckle rich with complacent innuendo. “Yessuh, I got dat, all right. Only I never heard hit called collateral befo’. Naw, suh, not dat.”
“Did you give that money to some nigger wench?” old Bayard demanded.
“Well, suh, hit’s like dis—” Simon began. But the other interrupted him.
“Ah, the devil. And now you expect me to pay it back, do you? How much was it?”
“I don’t rightly ricollick. Dem niggers claims hit wuz sevumty er ninety dollars er somethin’. But don’t you pay ’um no mind; you jes’ give ’um whutever you think is right: dey’ll take it.”
“I’m damned if I will. They can take it out of your worthless hide, or send you to jail—whichever they want to, but I’m damned if I’ll pay one cent of it.”
“Now, Cunnel,” Simon said, “you ain’t gwine let dem town niggers ’cuse a member of yo’ fambly of stealin’, is you?”
“Drive on!” old Bayard shouted. Simon turned on the seat and clucked to the horses and drove on, his cigar tilted toward his hat-brim, his elbows out and the whip caught smartly back in his hand, glancing now and then with tolerant and easy scorn at the field niggers laboring among the cotton rows.
Old man Falls replaced the cap on his tin of salve, wiped the tin carefully with the bit of rag, then knelt on the cold hearth and held a match to the rag.
“I reckon them doctors air still a-tellin’ you hit’s gwine to kill you, ain’t they?” he asked.
Old Bayard propped his feet against the hearth, cupping a match to his cigar, cupping two tiny match-flames in his eyes. He flung the match away and grunted.
Old man Falls watched the rag take fire sluggishly, with a pungent pencil of yellowish smoke that broke curling in the still air. “Ever’ now and then a feller has to walk up and spit in deestruction’s face, sort of, fer his own good. He has to kind of put a aidge on hisself, like he’d hold his ax to the grindstone,” he said, squatting before the pungent curling of the smoke as though in a pagan ritual in miniature. “Ef a feller’ll show his face to deestruction ever’ now and then, deestruction’ll leave ’im be twell his time comes. Deestruction likes to take a feller in the back.”
“What?” old Bayard said.
Old man Falls rose and dusted his knees carefully. “Deestruction’s like airy other coward,” he roared. “Hit won’t strike a feller that’s a-lookin’ hit in the eye lessen he pushes hit too clost. Your paw knowed that. Stood in the do’ of that sto’ the day them two cyarpetbaggers brung them niggers in to vote ’em that day in ’72. Stood thar in his Prince Albert coat and beaver hat, with his arms folded, when ever’body else had left, and watched them two Missouri fellers herdin’ them niggers up the road to’ds the sto’; stood right in the middle of the do’ while them two cyarpetbaggers begun backin’ off with their hands in their pockets until they was cl’ar of the niggers, and cussed him. And him standin’ thar jest like this.” He crossed his arms on his breast, his hands in sight, and for a moment old Bayard saw, as through a cloudy glass, that arrogant and familiar shape which the old man in shabby overalls had contrived in some way to immolate and preserve in the vacuum of his own abnegated self.
“Then, when they was gone on back down the road, Cunnel reached around inside the do’ and taken out the ballot box and sot hit between his feet.
“‘You niggers come hyer to vote, did you?’ he says. ‘All right, come up hyer and vote.’
“When they had broke and scattered he let off that ’ere dang der’nger over their heads a couple of times; then he loaded hit agin and marched down the road to Miz Winterbottom’s, whar them two fellers boa’ded.
/> “‘Madam,’ he says, liftin’ his beaver, ‘I have a small matter of business to discuss with yo’ lodgers. Permit me,’ he says, and he put his hat back on and marched up the stairs steady as a parade, with Miz Winterbottom gapin’ after him with her mouth open. He walked right into the room whar they was a-settin’ behind a table facin’ the do’, with their pistols layin’ on the table.
“When us boys outside heard the three shots we run in. Thar wuz Miz Winterbottom standin’ thar, gapin’ up the stairs, and in a minute hyer come Cunnel with his hat cocked over his eye, marchin’ down steady as a co’t jury, breshin’ the front of his coat with his hank’cher. And us standin’ thar, a-watchin’ him. He stopped in front of Miz Winterbottom and lifted his hat agin.
“‘Madam,’ he says, ‘I was fo’ced to muss up yo’ guest room right considerable. Pray accept my apologies, and have yo’ nigger clean it up and send the bill to me. My apologies again, madam, fer havin’ been put to the necessity of exterminatin’ vermin on yo’ premises. Gentlemen,’ he says to us, ‘good mawnin’.’ And he cocked that ’ere beaver on his head and walked out.
“And, Bayard,” old man Falls said, “I sort of envied them two Nawthuners, be damned ef I didn’t. A feller kin take a wife and live with her fer a long time, but after all they ain’t no kin. But the feller that brings you into the world or sends you outen hit . . .”
Where he lurked behind the pantry door Simon could hear the steady storming of Miss Jenny’s and old Bayard’s voices; later when they had removed to the office and Elnora and Caspey and Isom sat about the table in the kitchen waiting for him, the concussion of Miss Jenny’s raging and old Bayard’s rocklike stubborness came in muffled surges, as of far-away surf.
“What de quoilin’ erbout now?” Caspey asked. “Is you been and done somethin’?” he demanded of his nephew.