Meanwhile, the Christian Deputies were cantering their horses northward, a beatific Ambrose at point, Walton in the rear slouching in his saddle, when the distance revealed an uncovered farm wagon headed in their direction. As they drew nearer one another, the deputies noted that the pair of mules pulling the wagon wore straw sombreros, slits cut for their ears, the entire clattering operation driven by an elderly, thin Negro, his dark skin darker still from years of endless sun. He wore a Danbury hat—the exact style hung on Walton’s hatrack in his apartments in Philadelphia, the ousted leader realized. Fur-lined brim. Lizard skin band made from genuine South American iguanas.
Ambrose raised his fist and the troop slowed and endured its own dustcloud as the wagon-driver clicked his teeth to halt his mules. Walton was aware that if something didn’t happen, he would be the first white man in the history of these United States to lose his command to a Negro. He imagined drawing his pistol and shooting Ambrose in the back of the head and telling his mother about it.
Behind Ambrose, the remaining two deputies, Loon and Onan, walked their horses down the sloping land to within a few yards of where the elderly Negro had stopped his wagon. The two roads converged here into one, and the parties were going in the same direction. Walls of dense foliage would not permit both to pass at once, so one party would have to back up and let the other go. Whorls carved by countless wagon wheels—deep ruts, savage grooves cemented on the face of the land—indicated this juncture’s history in rainier times, submerged in water and likely impassable. Walton unclipped the rawhide safety thong from his sidearm and spurred Donny and sat alongside his fellow deputies.
Back up, uncle, Ambrose ordered the wagon-driver. Let us thew.
The colored man wore canvas hunting pants and a denim shirt faded almost white with silver snaps on the breast pockets. A red scarf tied at his neck. He held the reins loose in one hand and a short whip lash in the other.
I ain’t gone tell ye agin, Ambrose said. He drew his pistol and tapped it on his thigh. Abscond, ye rickety old nigger.
Ambrose, Walton said.
Yet the fellow sat perfectly still. One of the mules began to urinate, then the other followed suit.
That’s bad luck for somebody, Onan pointed out. Two mules pissing same time facing east.
For uncle here it is, Ambrose said. He pointed his pistol at the stranger. I’m gone count to five, he said. One. Two. Three. Four. Fi—
Wait! It was Walton. He threw his leg over Donny’s saddle and dismounted. His hand in the air signaling “Attention,” he hurried over the ruts past Ambrose’s horse to the wagon and laid a casual hand on the brake and lowered his goggles to show how earnest his eyes were.
Sir, he addressed the seated Negro, who didn’t look down at him. We Christian Deputies will certainly employ diplomacy when possible. But we are in a remarkable hurry here.
No response.
Sir! Walton repeated, knocking on the side of the wagon as if it were a door. Please, he said. Let us pass. This need not grow into a “scuffle.” There are several of us. You are a Negro, alone and unarmed. Quite elderly as well. We are most of us young, white and armed. We are trained, well-equipped professional lawmen on a mission to better this land for each us all, irregardless of the pigmentation of our skin. And, I hasten to add, we have already encountered two casualties today, witnessed by mine own eyes, two men murdered by yon fellow Negro. I worry in fact that he desires blood again. So I beseech you, sir: Let us pass.
The wagon-driver had been looking languidly at Deputy Ambrose who was still aiming his pistol. Now the stranger fixed on Walton those eyes with their enormous pupils.
Naw sir, the man said. It’s yall. Need to get out my way cause I’m in a hurry too. And what I got to deliver ain’t gone wait and ain’t gone want to eat yallses dirt all the way to town.
I beg your pardon? Walton showed the sky his palms—What in heaven’s name was going on here? Had every Negro in Alabama chosen today to assert his independence? Now, look here, the Philadelphian said, his voice rising in pitch. I’m normally very conscious of the lower races—
Hang on, Cap’n. It was Walton the driver addressed. What kind a commander ride all his men to a low spot of trees without sending one or two of em in thew the woods scout a ambush?
Walton glanced at the trees, their dusty twitching limbs and leaves, dawning with danger. Each acorn the squat sight on some hooligan’s “scattergun,” as if Death had stepped onto the road. He swallowed. Why, sir, do you ask?
For a long moment no answer came. Then the Negro said, Ye buck yonder’s demonstration of counting’s done inspired me. Pick one ye men.
Walton peered past the mules to where his troop, such as it was, sat their horses. Why, sir? he repeated.
Don’t sir me. If ye don’t pick one, the man said, I’m gone choose for my own self. He raised his chin to better see the deputies, who were eyeing the trees for ambushers.
I must insist, Walton pressed. Why?
Cause whichever one ye pick, Ambrose called, that feller gone die.
Walton could not move. That’s not true, is it? How? he asked. A demonstration of voodoo?
Voodoo? The colored man’s eyes shrank and his hat flexed back on his head and the wagon began to shake, as if it were laughing. He nodded to Walton. That’s right, boss, he said. Show is. Voodoo fixing blink its eye. Or a feller out in the woods, one. When I count up to five you can see.
The Christian Deputy leader threw Ambrose a panicked look.
One, counted the man.
Not Loon, Walton thought. Not Onan. Both were studying the trees, trying to spot the sniper.
Two.
Perhaps offer myself? thought Walton. As a gesture?
Three.
Ambrose! Of course! Here would be his chance.
Four.
Let him shoot Ambrose.
Walton glanced at Ambrose and the Negro saw, in Walton’s eyes, that he was about to be “sold down the river.”
Fi—
Wait! Ambrose swept his gloved hand toward the west. Go on, ye old snake-doctor. Fuck off with ye.
At which point, not even a display of gratitude, the uppity Negro cracked his whip lash and the farm wagon clacked forward, Walton leaping to the ground to avoid being crushed and the horses scrambling as the wagon banged over the whorls in the pass and then up the opposite hill where weeds grew in the road, dusty white grasshoppers fizzing in the air like fireworks set off by gnomes. When the wagon was gone the pass in the road seemed enormous.
Ambrose sheathed his pistol. Hey, Captain Fool?
Walton found it hard to stand as his knees had jellied. Give me a moment, he said. Please.
When ye ballsack descend back down out ye asshole, I want ye to write a entry in ye diary yonder says we jest got backed down by one old nigger and two old mules. The second-in-command took off his gloves and threw them in the dirt. Shit, he said and turned his horse and trotted away, in the opposite direction the farm wagon had gone.
Walton watched him, then turned to the wagon as it squeaked away. Before he had time to think better, he’d taken off, on foot, in pursuit of the old man. Walton was not one to “pull rank” because of his skin color, but this was uncalled-for behavior from a “darky” old enough to remember how conditions had been before Walton’s northern associates had liberated the slaves. For emphasis, he drew his revolver, which he had no intention of using, and was closing on the wagon, about to grab its tail-gate, when suddenly the driver whoaed his mules and the wagon stopped and the Christian Deputy founder nearly walked into its rear end. He raised his pistol—perhaps a warning shot in the air?—the same instant the tarp in the wagon-bed rolled like a swell of water and a fat bearded man elbowed himself up from the hay on the floor.