Virgil face turn to mush. That’s all? That’s everything? That’s all he said to you?
You know how Parson get, Virgil. When you try to press him.
Yes, say Virgil. Yes. I know.
We hush a spell, looking toward the river.
Dodds, he mumble.
Present!
Has he mentioned Canaan’s tongue to you?
Tongue of which?
Never mind, Virgil say. He take a breath.
Right, I say. Well. If you allow, Marse Virgil, they a power of work—
What about this, then? he say. He pull out a paper and fuss it open and hold it under my nose like a kerchief. Have you come across this anywhere? This symbol?
I give the paper a turn. I knew what it was before I seen it. I tip my head at him and grin. Sure, Marse Virgil. I come across it once.
You have? Then—
That the Victoria diamint! I know that much. They got a paste of it in Memphis. I seen it in a show.
Taken Prisoner
HE’S THERE BELOW MY WINDOW, Clementine says. Virgil is. Walking up and down.
Not too proud to look up and see me—: afraid to. Since he caught me outside the parlor door and I told him what I know he’s kept well clear of me. Clear of me but not of the thought of me, not of the part of him that thinks about me six times every hour, which is why he’s there. There below my window, not once looking up. Trusting that I’m looking down at him.
Which I am. I’m watching him, bored to death and thoughtless, in this raggedy old shift that I thought would keep trouble off me, but hasn’t trouble risen up just the same. The very same as always.
It has. I might be wearing the clothes I was birthed in for all the peace I’ve gotten in this house.
He moves hunched and buckled, an old habit. To keep that witchy eye of his from passers-by. There’s nobody going to pass him on that old lawn full of blight but old customs die hard, as they say. He’s looked people in the face no more than ten times in his life. Poor sly Virgil. Six of those times it was me.
I wonder whose death he’s chewing over presently. I wonder if it’s mine.
Something’s eating at his brain, some puzzle—: his lips are working as they do. Puzzling out his next one. His face is turned away from me but I can guess his look. I saw him digging with Dodds in back of the tobacco-house.
Would Virgil do me under? He would if he was clever. I want him up here suddenly—: up beside me on the bed. I’d call him up here, but. I turn and go back to the pallet.
“He still out there?” the boy says, lolling on his belly. His backside is as perfect laid across the quilt-work as a rooster’s tail-feathers laid across a puddle of shit. He sighs. “Why won’t that wall-eyed jack-ass look up?”
I press a finger to his shoulder. “I don’t think it was Virgil sent Kennedy out to shoot you, Oliver.”
The boy gives a laugh. “You’ve sure got a power of opinions.”
“I know him, that’s all. He’s never messed with Kennedy before.”
The boy is at the window now. Buck-naked, black against the light, waiting for Virgil to look up.
“Why won’t he look up?” he says.
The spite he nurses in his heart for Virgil waxes by the hour. He can’t think of Kennedy without thinking of Virgil giving him the order. And he thinks of Kennedy with every breath he pulls.
“Come away from the window, Oliver,” I say.
He grins. “But you just got yourself presentable.”
“Come on over here.”
But he doesn’t come. He wants Virgil to see him bare-arsed in the window. He fancies that would give him satisfaction.
“You don’t know Virgil Ball,” I say. “You think you do.”
“He’s proud,” the boy says.
“Not the way you are, Oliver. Not the kind to look my lover in the face. Not the kind to come up here, kick the door open, and spit in your pretty eye.” I smile at him. “Which is just what you deserve.”
“And what do you deserve, Miss Gilchrist?” says the boy. He gathers up his clothes. “What, all things considered, should your own penance be?”
“Go play Indian with your Yankees,” I say.
He buttons up his shirt. “You’re a fine woman yet,” he says. He says it grudgingly.
“And what are you, Mr. Delamare?” I say. “Are you half what you pretend? Can you get me out of this smoke-house?”
He laughs — he laughs at this! — and shakes his head. “There’s men at every cross-roads, ma’am. We’d not make it half a mile.”
“I’ll get eaten if I stay,” I say.
“You might,” the boy agrees.
“I can’t recollect why we came to this place,” I whisper. “Do you remember why?”
“He told us to,” the boy says. Referring to the R—.
“He must have wanted us to get to know each other better,” I say, and give a laugh.
The boy steps into his boots. “He wanted us to get together in a skillet and fry in it.”
“Wouldn’t he be pleased,” I say.
“At least we’ve got each other,” the boy says. “You and I.”
My face is turned into the blanket. The look on it wouldn’t suit the boy’s notion of himself half a grain.
“You’ve got a fine back-side,” he says.
The boy has no idea what I keep him for, and that’s what pleases me. What comfort I scratch together each day comes from that one thing. Pennies scavenged in a field. It’s a comfort, God knows, that ignorance of his. And only a young man can give to you.
“Well—,” he says after a time.
I roll onto my back. He has on his derby now, and his ivory smoking-jacket. He sighs and ruffles out his feathers.
“I’ve a hard time thinking—,” he says. “I’ve a hard time thinking that the R— planned for me to end up like your friend Goodie Harvey, packed under the clay. Or like Virgil Ball, either.”
“Oh! You’ll end up differently from those two, Oliver.”
He squints down at me. “Different how?”
“Go play Indian,” I say. “Go on!”
He says nothing, does nothing. I feel his dark eyes picking into me.
“You know what I call you to myself?” I say, for no other reason but to get him gone.
“What?”
“I call you ‘the boy.’ ”
That stops him quick. “Not your boy,” he spits out. “Not yours, you three-penny flop! Not yet.”
The door bangs shut behind him then, and I can take a breath.
NOW THIS ERROR is tucked in with the rest—: all the wide yellow rest of them, so many that the room is bloated up, hard and shiny and tight, like the stomach of a cow. And yet each mistake, taken in the hand, is no greater than a pea.
When I’m sure the boy is gone I go quietly to the window. Virgil is nowhere to be seen. I take a breath. The window has two loose panes, diamond-cut and beveled, the size of my palm exactly. I tip them out with my thumb and the air comes hissing in like nothing. I press my face against the glass. The air gets shriller in my ears. Shriller fiercer colder.
This is how I talk with the R—.
The air comes all in a single sucking. There is no relief from it. When every other sound is swallowed I can begin to ask my questions.
“Is it you, my love?” I ask.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS, the sucking answers.
“Who will it be?” I ask. “Who will it be next?”
It answers quick and spiteful and I know it won’t be me.
“What’s Virgil’s scheme?” I ask. “What’s Parson’s?” But the sucking has stopped already. A noise from the hall has frightened it. The R— is gone as quickly as he came.