Hent chuckled and gave Larkie back his shovel. “You want lunch today, niggerboy, you eat that there turtle.”
Dale straightened up, a hand to the small of his back.
“Captain, all you got’s a gun makes you feel like God almighty. I ever get you alone without one...”
Captain Hent brought his whisker-stubbled face inches from Dale’s. “Boy, maybe tonight at the compound we’ll have us a little shot at that there. No gun. Tonight on your own time.”
In the evenings they were unchained inside the barbwire enclosure, could shower, take a dump, shave, sew, or wash their clothing. They could even, if so inclined, sit on the weathered front steps and listen to the birdlike whistle of the tree frogs, wit-wit-wit repeated a score of times without pause.
“Makin’ up stories in your head?” asked Larkie as he sat down beside Collinson.
“Listening to the tree frogs. They sort of sound like somebody calling his dog.”
“Yeah.” Larkie hunkered down, his hands clasped between his knees, and lapsed into uncharacteristic silence. Finally he said, “Wisht I hadn’t of got funnin’ at that old cap’n this afternoon. Dale thinks he faced the man down, but...” He turned to look at Collinson. “What you think gonna happen?”
A barred owl sailed wide-winged into the top of a dead tree high above them. He gave his two distinctive hoots, then fell silent, alert for any swamp rabbit or tiny golden mouse spooked by his cry.
“Maybe he’ll lose some privileges,” said Collinson.
Two guards were striding toward them across the flattened grass of the compound. They paused at the foot of the steps, fleshy men in their late twenties, vets come home seven years earlier to a world perhaps safe for democracy but with no assurance of steady jobs for ex-servicemen.
“Where’s your buddy, black boy?”
“Inside. But there ain’t no need for you to...”
They were already clumping up the steps. They came back out with Dale between them. He looked pale and frightened, but determined. With a burst of maniacal laughter, the owl spread its wings to sail off into the gathering dusk.
Captain Hent’s door opened to silhouette him against the light. Slapping the nightstick in his right hand against his left palm, he stepped back so they could go past him into the cabin. Two minutes later the guards came back out, one carrying Captain Hent’s holstered .44. The door slammed behind them.
“Oh sweet Jesus,” Larkie had moaned at the sight of the gun.
The guards blew the bed-check whistle. The convicts not already inside began gathering. Larkie stood there, irresolute.
“There isn’t anything you can do,” said Collinson.
That’s when the thud of nightstick on flesh started. As the other convicts got into their bunks, not meeting the two boys’ eyes, defiant cries joined the blows. The guards strung the chains through the staples on the ankle cuffs.
“What about Dale?” asked Larkie.
A guard answered with a muttered curse. He released the pressure of the kerosene lamp, there was a low hiss as the mantles began to fade. Collinson lay stiff and silent on his bunk, listening to the voracious whine of mosquitoes, the whistle of the tree frogs. No more blows; just a voice now, pleading.
Then a new sound started, carried on the clear night air. Regular, steady, gradually increasing in speed and urgency. Collinson could almost feel Larkie’s rigidity in the next bunk.
Captain Hent’s bedsprings, squealing...
Collinson woke sometime in the night. There was no moon, he could see little. Could hear only night sounds; then the bedsprings started again. When he woke just before dawn, Dale was back on the bunk in a fetal position, silently crying.
For noon they ate balls of cooked rice and rested on the sloping side of the levee for half an hour, away from the others. Collinson had no stories that day.
“He said he was gonna do me again tonight,” Dale said suddenly. His voice was almost unrecognizable. He sat between Larkie and Collinson, looking straight ahead across the swamp. “We gotta—”
“Ain’t no gottas here, man,” said Larkie. “ ’Cept we gotta see us plenty of country once we’s outta this bind. Ain’t gonna last forever, even if... even if...”
He stopped, not able to go on. Dale turned to Collinson.
“When I was a kid we lived in a big white house with a white fence around it and a red pump out in back higher than I was. I’d stick my head under there, hot days, and my daddy would pump cold water on me. I remember things like that, I know I can’t take any more of what Hent did to me. You’re smart, you been to school. You gotta think of something.”
“Okay, I’ll try,” said Collinson. Maybe try to get to the judge... Maybe do himself some good, too. “But you’ve got to promise me you won’t do anything dumb before then. Okay?”
Captain Hent’s whistle ended the noon break. The convicts started painfully to their feet, working tightened muscles.
“Okay,” said Dale, “I promise.”
Captain Hent sat like a bullfrog in his puddle of shade, drinking water, a half-smile on his face, watching the muscles strain under Dale’s blue shirt. At the water break, the men laid down their tools to start for the jug. Hent stopped Dale.
“Bet you wanna kill me, don’t you, boy?”
Dale shut his eyes for a moment, his face taut, fighting for control. Finally he opened his eyes and raised his arm to wipe the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his shirt.
Captain Hent’s hand swept the big .44 from the holster on his hip with a fluid movement that denoted long hours of practice before a mirror, an elated, transported expression on his face.
He fired from a crouch with his body turned in the approved Police Manual method. The heavy slug took Dale just under his right eye; the back of his head split outward like a melon. He fell on his face. His nose broke against the pink earth.
“Sweet Christ in Heaven!” cried Larkie.
He dropped to his knees beside his dead buddy, breathing like a man just kicked in the groin. Collinson was frozen in place, afraid of being sick; he had never seen anyone die except his granddad, and that had been in the odor of sanctity, doctor in attendance, family around him, wife to hold his hand so he wouldn’t be scared as he went gentle into that good night.
“He said he was going to kill me.” Captain Hent looked around at the eyes he was sure had not seen, the lips he was sure would not speak. “You all heard that. Then he raised his hand to me. When the investigators come around, you’ll tell them what he said and how he raised his hand to me.”
Larkie cried, “All he did was go to wipe his face. Just a man gonna wipe his face—”
“He wasn’t no man, niggerboy — just a backwards pussy for me to fuck.” Captain Hent gave a harsh bark of laughter and turned away. “Okay, all of you. Back to work.”
Larkie bent to whisper something against Dale’s strong dead throat. Blood from the exit wound in the back of the skull glistened on the callused pink palms of his brown hands, impregnated the denim of his trousers. Captain Hent spoke again.
“You too, niggerboy.”
Larkie slid the body off his lap. Dale’s left hand struck the dirt as softly as a girl’s breath stirring a curtain.
“Here I comes, Cap’n,” said Larkie with a desperate gaiety.
By the time Hent let them trundle Dale back to the compound in a wheelbarrow, the dead man’s head was covered with big, fat, shiny green flies buzzing loudly like a radio warming up. Black vultures circled overhead in silent frustration.