“No?” Parson takes me by the shoulder. “I’ll tell you about it, then. This is how it’s done.”
I shrug his hand away. “What I’d prefer to know, Parson, is—”
Parson presses a loose-skinned finger to my mouth.
“Listen, Oliver, and attend. Several girls prepare a supper in the dark, doing everything backwards and without speaking a word. When the meal is ready, they put a pan of water and a towel on the door-step, and leave the house-door open to the night. Each girl brings a chair to the table, then stands silently beside the chair and waits.” Parson looks from me to Virgil. “The future husbands of the girls will soon appear, wash themselves in the pan of water, dry themselves with the towel, then sit down in the chairs to eat. When they have finished they will leave the house exactly as they came.” Parson’s gamey old breath wicks along my ear—: “That’s how babies are made, Oliver.”
Virgil shouts a curse. “Who murdered Harvey? Answer me, you damned witch! Do we have to cook a dinner backwards to get an answer out of you?”
Parson pauses a moment, smiling into his collar, then says carefully and crisply, as though reading from a book—:
“While the husbands are eating, they converse with one another. They talk of the things they’ve seen on their way to the house. And if the girls are clever — if the girls have ears to hear — they listen and attend. For the future will bring every last thing their fiancées describe.” Parson takes a step forward and allows his back to settle into its habitual crook. “What language do you think those husbands converse in, gentlemen? Surely you don’t suppose it’s English?”
Neither of us answer. Parson beckons us closer.
“Canaan’s tongue is the language of future things.” His voice drops to a whisper. “The future, gentlemen, is its one and only tense. Soon— very soon — there will be no other language. Some will speak the tongue, some will obey it. And each of us will be asked to choose between those two societies.” Parson cocks his head at Virgil. “Which will you choose, Mr. Ball?”
“Which did Harvey choose?”
But Parson has already turned his back on us, tipping and bobbing toward the house as if he had paddle-wheels for feet.
“He’s a great one for riddles,” I mutter as we watch him go.
“He knows who killed Harvey,” Virgil says. “He knows everything about it.”
I nod. “What’s more, he knows you think so. And he doesn’t seem to mind.”
“But there is something else he minds,” Virgil says, keeping his eyes on Parson. “Something he wants us not to see. Behind all his sport there’s a living fact — or perhaps only a question — that he’s desperate to keep us from discovering. He wants us in the dark, Oliver. Like the girls at that damn supper.”
“If that’s what he wants, my hat goes off to him,” I say.
“Canaan’s tongue is the key to it—; that much I’m sure of.” Virgil chews on his lip for awhile. “It means what Parson says it does, of course, but it means something else besides.” He turns to me. “And so does that cattle-brand. That shape. The one in Harvey’s letter.”
“Cattle-brand?” I say. “What cattle-brand? Are you speaking Parson’s English now?”
“I had a vision this morning,” Virgil says.
I give him a good hard look. His face is solemn as an urn.
“Spare me your wheels of fire, Virgil. They become a man of reason poorly.”
He takes a nervous breath and clutches at my sleeve, the same sleeve that Parson clawed at not five minutes gone. “Do you recollect that shape in Harvey’s letter?”
I think a moment. “That boxy sort of scribble? From the meeting at the Old Grange?”
“That’s the one.” His voice goes shrill and eager. “I’ve seen that shape before, Oliver.”
I look toward the house. Parson is nowhere to be seen.
“So have I,” I say.
Virgil all but vaults into the air. “I knew it! I knew it! Where was it, Oliver? Did you manage to find out what it means?”
I regard him evenly for the briefest of instants, allowing myself to commit his slack-jawed, slavering look to memory. My satisfaction has arrived, easily and completely, as I knew it would. I take Virgil’s full measure, remind myself that he sent Kennedy to kill me, then calmly free my shirt-sleeve from his grip.
“It means ‘Suffer fools,’ Virgil,” I say to him. “And you’ve been had for one. That sign is a Cherokee fool-catcher.”
The Victoria Diamint
SOON ENOUGH, Dodds says. Didn’t it come down on me soon.
Virgil come jabbering about that hole. I knew when I dugged it a body might see it and come round fussing. Praps I reckoned it. Praps I reckoned he would come.
Virgil find me by the griddle in the cook-house, pulling cuts off a ham-brace and stewing sundry greens.
Dodds, he say. I’m puzzled by your diggings.
I shake my head. I’m puzzlit by them, too.
Praps we can puzzle it out together, he say. He give a cough. Who said to dig behind the tobacco shed?
Parson, I say, fussing at the ham.
Parson, he say. All right.
I commence to cutting onions.
What for, Dodds? Did he say what for?
He said most likely they was more to come.
Virgil face go flat. More whats? More burials? More holes?
More killings, I say.
Virgil hush.
So, I say. I askit could I get started.
Dodds, Virgil say. He voice gone soft and jumpish. Did Parson give a reason why?
I tolt you it, I say. They likely come more killings—
Yes but why, Dodds? Why would there be more?
I pull my shoulders up. I askit that already.
Virgil swallow and shuffle and blink. What did Parson say?
I take in a longish breathe. I grin at Virgil and scratch behind my ears and watch him stew and fret himself. Then I give it to him like a sweet.
Parson said to me, Three reasons, Doddsbody.
Three reasons, Virgil say. He say it slowly back to me, like a lesson.
That’s right. Then Parson put three fingers up. Reason one! he say. You know, Doddsbody, that to meet a friend on the street, and to pass him by like a stranger, is a sure and proven death-sign for that friend.
Virgil hush for a time. Well?
Everybody on the river know that, Parson, I tolt him. Right, he say. Reason two! You must also know, Doddsy, that two persons saying the same thing at the same time, in one another’s company, means a violent ending for one of them.
Virgil open he mouth and close it.
Yes, Parson, I said. I know it. Then Parson tappit me on the collar. What are the tenants of this house, Charlie, but a group of friends living together as enemies, passing one another by without knowing it, and reciting the same words over and over, all of them together, like deaf-mutes at a mass?
Virgil eyes go slantish.
There you have it, Marse.
You ape our Parson beautifully, Dodds. You might have passed for a man of God yourself, just now. You sound positively schooled.
And me just a tom-fool nigger, I say.
Virgil blink and go flushed. I’m sorry, Dodds. I meant no harm by it. Go on.
Well—
Go on, Dodds! Tell me the rest.
All right, I say. That’s all, Parson? I askit. That’s all, Doddsbody, he say.
Virgil squint again. But—
But you still got one finger in the air, Parson, I tolt him. That were only the two reasons.
Bless you! What did he say to that?
I’ll tell you. Parson look at he third finger like he never seen it yet. Oh! That, he say. That’s just my lumbago, Charlie boy.