The Colonel is for following them, placing them under house-arrest, discovering what they know. Kennedy is for killing them both at once. Poor dead Harvey is forgotten.
What are you for, Parson? asks the Colonel.
I keep my face close to the window. Me, Colonel? I answer. I smile at him. I’m for leaving well enough alone.
A Gun-Fight
I OUGHT TO HAVE LEFT WELL ENOUGH ALONE, Virgil says. That strange and consequence-less night, the night of the Redeemer’s murder, is bright in my mind as Delamare and I take our promenade. Since we found Harvey dead, Morelle has never left my thoughts. I should be locked in the smoke-house at this very moment, awaiting my hanging-trail for Harvey’s murder—: everyone knows what I did to Morelle. Somehow, however, I remain at liberty. It’s as if they’ve forgotten what I did, Parson and Kennedy and the Colonel—: forgotten it, or dismissed it out of hand. It’s Delamare they want. I’m a Jack Fetchit to them, nothing more. Of interest only as an errand-boy.
It’s enough to bruise my sense of dignity.
“Fetch the mulatto,” the Colonel told me, and I went. I went happily. The sight of the three of them licking their chops over Harvey’s left-overs was beginning to affect me. They were altogether too pleased to have him laid out like a cat-fish at their feet. It was beginning to put ideas into their heads.
Instead of fetching the mulatto as I was told to do, however, I’ve taken the mulatto on a stroll. The fact of it makes me feel dangerous and sly.
Delamare moves sullenly, fingers working in his pockets. “They all want me under-ground,” he mutters, glowering at his shoes. “I’ve come too far in this business for a nigger. They’ll hang Harvey on me, you can bet.”
“You didn’t kill anybody, Oliver,” I say, passing my arm through his. “Poison — even coyote poison — wouldn’t suit your temperament.”
We stand together by the orchard gate, at the head of the path snaking down to the river. On less adventurous mornings the gate marks the end-point of our stroll—; today, however, Delamare is feeling restless. Watching him worry at the gravel with his boot-heel I make a guess, more or less idly, as to this morning’s destination. The cedar park, peradventure, or out to the property line? Farther still, to the old shanty-town? Delamare leans to one side and looks me over, itching to ask about the Colonel.
The shanty-town today, I think.
“I did it, Virgil. By Old Wheezy’s reckoning, at least. Why else would he send you out to fetch me?”
“I wouldn’t say you’re the chief suspect,” I say, pushing open the gate. I wouldn’t say it, but of course he is. It’s Delamare they want.
“Of course I am,” he says. “Who’ll they hang it on instead?”
I hesitate. “Parson left his room last night. The Colonel and I both heard him. Some words were passed between the Colonel and Parson. Funny looks.”
“Ha! I don’t doubt that.”
“And Kennedy seemed more bilious than usual.”
“Kennedy,” Delamare says, looking out at the river. “One day I’ll be chief suspect in his retirement. I’ll say that much.”
“Then there’s me, of course.” I pause a moment. “I found the body.”
“That’s right, Virgil—; there’s you,” Delamare says fondly. “Shall we walk on?”
I’m a trained bear to all of them, even to Delamare, who knows me best—: trained and coffled to a stump. Though I stuffed the Redeemer’s body down the privy and relieved myself on his remains (and this in full sight of Dodds, the house-boy), I’m not thought capable of murder. I was the Redeemer’s opera-glass, his faro-chip, his marble—; and so shall I remain, in the eyes of my associates, forever.
“Where to?” I say, pulling the gate closed after us.
Delamare is already sashaying down the bluff. “I thought possibly the shanty-town,” he says. “I’m in no hurry to have my head picked by that old horse-buggerer.”
The path to the shanty-town winds down from Geburah through clusters of holly and smoke-bush—: malnourished, anemic-looking trees barely able to make shade. In better days it was a proper road, wide enough for a hitched team of oxen to travel on in comfort. Now we walk in single-file. Storm and high water have swept away all traces of humanity but this narrow groove of earth. The country here feels little tenderness toward posterity.
When the town shambles into view it comes as a disappointment, even a shock, as though the current has left its work unfinished. Each time we take this walk I nurture the hope that the huddle of ugly, bow-backed shacks will have been swept away at last. Finding it there time and again, at ease in its pocket of quiet, is enough to make a man lose confidence in the river.
“This was a Choctaw settlement,” Delamare says, leaning against the door of one of the less decrepit shacks. “The darkies put the natives off—; then the Yankees drove the darkies away.” He smiles. “Coaxed them away, I suppose.”
I duck into a shack I’ve not been inside of yet. This theme has long since become familiar to me from our walks, and I no longer credit it. Anyone can see these shacks have been empty for years, since well before the Union came snaking up-river from the Gulf. I feel a momentary urge to poke at Delamare’s self-assurance—; against my better judgment, I give in to it.
“They didn’t have to coax them too hard, Oliver, it seems to me.”
Delamare’s head appears in a window-frame with the morning light behind it. His silhouette, topped by its wide-brimmed planter’s hat, is that of the finest Southern gentleman—: as always, President Davis comes to mind. “What would you know about it, Virgil Ball?” he says.
The answer I give has a natural, plantation-bred obsequiousness to it that Delamare — whether he’d admit it or not — is grateful for. I taught myself this voice for dealing with men of property up and down the river, but it works on him better still. “Not much, Mr. Delamare, I guess.”
His face disappears from the window. I find him crouched by a scattering of ash and food-tins, picking through them like a relic-seeker. “Did your Choctaw eat salted okra?” I say, taking up a tin.
He stares raptly at the ground. “This is a recent fire, Virgil.”
A moment passes before I take his meaning. “What of it? This has been a fishing-hole for ages. You can’t expect the local boys to leave off—”
“This country’s been lousy with blue-coats for over a month,” Delamare says, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You know that as well as anybody. Now shut your mouth!”
He’s right, of course. “I’m sorry, Oliver,” I say quietly. “You must think me quite the innocent.”
Delamare squints at me an instant longer, then shakes his head. “I don’t suppose you are,” he says. He takes the tin from my hand and sniffs at it. “Do you have no fear they’ll catch us?”
“Oh! They’ll catch us, Oliver.”
“And that doesn’t put you out of sorts?”
“The certainty of it has a calming effect,” I say. “You might try it yourself. It does wonders for the liver.”
“Not in my nature, I’m afraid,” Delamare says, allowing himself to smile. “In point of fact—”
Just then a rustling drops down on us from the trees and two men come into view, framed picturesquely against the slope, scrambling with all possible speed up-hill. Delamare is on his feet at once. “You! Boys!” he calls out in a leisurely voice, as though the confirmation of his fears had immediately quieted them.