Obvious (the pistol) not only to us but to Father himself. Because Father knew about it too. He had to know about it; our establishment was too small, too intricate, too closely knit. So Father's moral problem was exactly the same as John Powell's, and both of them knew it and handled it as mutual gentlemen must and should: if Father were ever compelled to acknowledge the pistol was there, he would have to tell John either to leave it at home tomorrow, or not come back himself. And John knew this and, a gentleman too, he himself would never be the one to compel Father to acknowledge the pistol existed. So, instead of in the overall bib, John's wife stitched the pocket just under the left armpit of the jumper itself, invisible (anyway unobtrusive) when John was wearing the jumper or when in warm weather (like now) the jumper hung on John's private nail in the harness room. That was the situation of the pistol when Boon, who was being paid to be and who in a sense had given his word that he would be at home in bed at this hour instead of hanging around the Square, where he would be vulnerable to what had sent him rushing back to the stable, came jumping through the office door a minute ago and made Father and John Powell both liars.
Only Father was too late again. Boon fooled him—us. Because Boon knew about that nail in the harness room too. And smart too, too smart to come back up the hallway where he would have to pass the office; when we reached the lot John and Luster and Gabe (the three mules and the horse too) were still watching the still-swinging side gate through which Boon had just vanished, carrying the pistol in his hand. John and Father looked at each other for about ten seconds while the whole edifice of entendre-de-noblesse collapsed into dust. Though the noblesse, the oblige, still remained. "It was mine," John said.
"Yes," Father said. "He saw Ludus on the Square."
"I'll catch him," John said. "Take it away from him too. Say the word."
"Catch Ludus, somebody," Gabe said. Though short, he was a tremendously big man, bigger than Boon, with a terrifically twisted leg from an old injury in his trade; he would pick up the hind foot of a horse or mule and lock it behind the warped knee and (if there was something—a post—anything—for him to hold to) the horse or mule might throw itself but no more: neither snatch that foot free nor get enough balance to kick him with the other one. "Here, Luster, you jump and catch—"
"Aint nobody studying Ludus," John said. "Ludus the safest man there. I seen Boon Hogganbeck"—he didn't say Mister and he knew Father heard him: something he would never have failed to do in the hearing of any white man he considered his equal, because John was a gentleman. But Father was competent for noblesse too: it was that pistol which was unforgivable, and Father knew it— "shoot before. Say the word, Mr Maury."
"No," Father said. "You run to the office and telephone Mr Hampton." (That's right. A Hampton was sheriff then too.) "Tell him I said to grab Mr Boon as quick as he can." Father went toward the gate.
"Go with him," Gabe told Luster. "He might need somebody to run for him. And latch that gate."
So the three of us went up the alley toward the Square, me trotting now to keep up, not really trying to overtake Boon so much as to stay between Boon and the pistol and John Powell. Because, as John himself had said, nobody needed to study Ludus. Because we all knew Boon's marksmanship, and with Boon shooting at Ludus, Ludus himself was safe. He (Ludus) had been, one of our drivers too until last Tuesday morning. This is what happened, as reconstructed from Boon and Mr Ballott and John Powell and a little from Ludus himself. A week or two before, Ludus had found a new girl, daughter (or wife: we didn't know which) of a tenant on a farm six miles from town. On Monday evening, when Boon came in to relieve Mr Ballott for the night shift, all the teams and wagons and drivers were in except Ludus. Mr Ballott told Boon to telephone him when Ludus came in, and went home. That was Mr Ballott's testimony. This was Boon's, corroborated in part by John Powell (Father himself had gone home some time before): Mr Ballott was barely out the front door when Ludus came in the back way, on foot. Ludus told Boon that the tire on one of his wheels had loosened and he had stopped at our house and seen Father, who had told him to drive the wagon into the pond in the pasture where the wood of the wheel would swell back to the tire, and stable and feed the mules in our lot and come and get them in the morning. Which you could have expected even Boon to believe, as John Powell immediately did not, since anyone who knew either would have known that, whatever disposition he made of the wagon for the night, Father would have sent Ludus to lead the team back to their stalls in the livery stable where they could be cleaned and fed properly. But that's what Boon said he was told, which he said was why he didn't interrupt Mr Ballott's evening meal to notify him, since Father knew where the mules and wagon were, and it was Father, not Mr Ballott, who owned them.
Now John Powell telling it: but reluctantly; he would likely never have told it at all if Boon had not made his (John's) silence about the truth a larger moral issue than his loyalty to his race. Once he saw Ludus walk empty-handed into the back door of the stable at the next coincident moment to Mr Ballott's departure by the front one, leaving only Boon in charge, John didn't even bother to listen to what tale Ludus would tell. He simply went back through the hallway and across the lot into the alley and on to the end of the alley and was actually standing beside the wagon when Ludus returned to it. It now contained a sack of flour, a gallon jug of coal oil and (John said) a nickel sack of peppermint candy. This is about what happened, because although John's word about any horse or mule while inside the stable was law, inviolable, even beyond Boon, right up to Mr Ballott or Father himself, out here in no man's land he was just another wage hand in Maury Priest's livery stable and he and Ludus both knew it. Maybe Ludus even reminded him of this, but I doubt it. Because all Ludus needed to say was something like: "Ji word gets back to Maury Priest about how I borried this wagon and team tonight, maybe the same word gonter get back to him about what's sewed up in that jumper you wears."
And I dont think he said that either because he and John both knew that too, just as they both knew that if Ludus waited for John to report to Father what Ludus called the "borrying" of the wagon and team, Father would never know it, and if John waited for Ludus (or any other Negro in the stable or Jefferson either) to tell Father about that pistol, Father would never know that either. So Ludus probably said nothing at all, and John only said, "All right. But if them mules aint back in their stalls, without one sweat or whip mark on them and not even looking sleepy, a good solid hour before Mr Ballott gets here tomorrow morning" (you will have already noticed how both of them had completely dismissed Boon from the affair: neither Ludus to say, "Mr Boon knows these mules wont be in tonight; aint he the boss until Mr Ballott comes back in the morning?" nor John to say, "Anybody that would believe the tale you brought in here tonight in place of them mules, aint competent to be the boss of nothing. And I aint even good convinced yet that his name is Boon Hogganbeck") "Mr Maury aint just gonter know where that team and wagon wasn't last night, he's gonter know where they was."