COLONEL—Come in, Asa! Please be seated. We won’t keep you long.
TRIST—What?
COLONEL—Sit down, Asa.
TRIST—Yes. I’ll be seated Colonel, God-father, sir but first may I know will I be answering any questions you may have.
COLONEL—Shall I ask you a question now, to see?
TRIST—You can ask me, yes. But then? (SMILES)
COLONEL—All right, Asa—
TRIST—Are there any niggers hereabouts?
COLONEL—No, Asa. Only Dodds. You know Dodds pretty well.
TRIST—Yes. I know old Dodds. Shall I tell you where he got his color from?
COLONEL—I have a di ferent question. Last night—
TRIST—Why is Mr. Ball present?
COLONEL—Virgil is here to put your answers down on paper.
TRIST—Oh! I don’t know. I don’t know about that, Grand-father. No.
COLONEL—How did you sleep last night, Asa?
TRIST—Flatly. Straight and flatly as a plank.
COLONEL—Did you sleep well?
TRIST—I was up early. (SMILES) — I might well have been the first.
COLONEL—At what hour did you wake?
TRIST (PAUSE) — Very nearly five.
COLONEL—Did you get up?
TRIST—Ah! Uncle. No. I laid down flat.
COLONEL—And did you at any time hear—
TRIST—I was sitting on the bed, in fact, Colonel D’Ancourt. Then all at once out of the water came a sort of — (PAUSE) — A sort of beasties, and my black dolly was among them. They were human in part, and a part of them was animal — that much I saw clear. There was witchery in it. Do you follow me, Virgil? I lay down flat. I think my own body was trying to slide into the water—: into the river. Under it. And take me bodily out of this world. (PAUSE) — It still happens to me now, when I lie still.
COLONEL (PAUSE) — Oh Asa. (PAUSE) — Leave off your scribbling, Virgil.
TRIST—Virgil is looking at me with his fine white eye. He sees the nigger in me plain.
COLONEL—Virgil, would you—?
TRIST—I did hear a noise, Father. Sometime after dawn.
COLONEL (PAUSE) — What’s that, Asa? What was it you heard?
TRIST—Two voices raised up in anger most foul.
COLONEL—Whose voices?
TRIST—One of them was black and the other was fair gone Harvey. I got out of bed to see.
COLONEL—A black, was it? The mulatto?
TRIST—Yes.
COLONEL—Are you taking this down, Virgil?
TRIST—Virgil is putting it down on paper. Virgil is writing us a novel.
COLONEL—And what next? Did you see them, Asa boy? Did you open your door and see them?
TRIST (PAUSE) — Yes.
COLONEL—Where were they? On the landing?
TRIST—They were—
COLONEL—Asa! Look at me when I speak to you. Where did you see Harvey and the mulatto?
TRIST (INAUDIBLE)
COLONEL—Virgil, take him by the shoulder. Quickly.
TRIST (INAUDIBLE)
COLONEL—Asa! —
TRIST (QUIETLY) — I’m — it’s all right. I’m awake. I’m the first to be awake this morning. (PAUSE) — It’s nearly five.
COLONEL—What happens next, Asa? Do you get out of bed?
TRIST—I should like to. I should like to get out of bed very badly.
COLONEL—Why don’t you get out of bed, Asa?
TRIST—Why? Why? (SHOUTS) — Because Harvey hasn’t finished his letter!
COLONEL—What letter? What letter do you mean?
TRIST (SMILES) — This letter, Uncle. Why—
COLONEL—Give it over, Asa—; give it here to me. (SOFTLY) — Take it from him, Virgil.
TRIST—I’ll give it to you! Here it is, Grandfather. You keep playing at your history, Mr. Ball.
COLONEL—Thank you, Asa. (PAUSE)
TRIST—Is it addressed to you, God-father?
COLONEL—Good lord, Virgil.
TRIST—Virgil’s busy at his memoirs.
COLONEL—Go find Kennedy, Virgil. Go and find him straight-away.
TRIST—Yes Mr. Ball leave off now of your papers and fetch that black frightful Irishman. That black black fearful man. (RISING) — Lay down with me now, Colonel. We’ll all of us lie down together. Lie down flat.
COLONEL—Run and get him, Virgil! Virgil! Do you hear?
An Encounter
HERE COMES KENNEDY TO KILL ME, Delamaresays.
When I come out of the woods he’s laying for me with eyes like chips of dead gray mud. He has nothing in his hands, no club or knife or bottle-end, but I know from his far-away look what it is he’s after. He brings his left hand up, just slightly, to fix me in his sight. He might be preparing to render me in oils.
“Off chasing Federals, were you, blacks?” he says. “Or was it rabbits?”
I keep my eyes steady on his hands. “Why not get your shot off as I came out of the brush?”
“Ah! I wanted to look at you, Oliver.” He slaps playfully at his hip. “Besides, I might’ve dropped a Yank by accident. I’d never of forgave myself.”
Now he is holding his hands out for me to see.
“You’ve looked at me,” I say. “Now you can shoot.”
“Right,” says Kennedy. “Yes.” But his hands keep still. In his dirty buck-skin breeches with his dirtier body inside them he seems perfect to me—; consummate. There stands Kennedy, come to kill me. He wears his purpose like a crown.
“Been waiting on this to fall down on us, ain’t we, blacks. Ever since I muh! — muh! — mancipated you. And here it is.”
“Get your pistol out, Irish.” His hands are red, not yellow like the rest of him. They open and close like little bellows. “Get it out, or let me by. I’m late for an appointment.”
He laughs. “Ah! I could never let you go now, pretty fellow. You’re a fugitive of society, on account of murder.”
And then it makes itself known, like a pane of beveled glass laid against my chest—: the knowledge that he will kill me. The likelihood was there always — he’s put so many under — but until this moment it was no more than a thought. Now it fills my mouth like spittle.
“I had no part in Harvey’s death,” I say, but my voice has gone careless. Harvey is of no consequence any longer. Here stands Kennedy, come to kill me. Nothing else has truth to me, or weight.
He hears it in my voice, my willingness to let him, but still he makes no movement—: there’s a chance I’d get a shot off as I fell. I watch Kennedy consider this. He bunches his face together. He’s remembering my repeater and my youth.