"Didn't—they didn't------ Oh, thank God! Thank
God!"
"We didn't------" Ringo said.
"Hush!" I said. Because we didn't have to say it, it was like we had had to hold our breaths for a long time without knowing it, and that now we could let go and breathe again. Maybe that was why we never heard the other man, when he came in, at all; it was Louvinia that saw that, too—a colonel, with a bright short beard and hard bright gray eyes, who looked at Granny sitting in the chair with her hand at her breast, and took off his hat. Only he was talking to the sergeant.
"What's this?" he said. "What's going on here, Harrison?"
"This is where they run to," the sergeant said. "I'm searching the house."
"Ah," the colonel said. He didn't sound mad at all. He just sounded cold and short and pleasant. "By whose authority?"
"Well, somebody here fired on United States troops. I gyess this is authority enough." We could just hear the sound; it was Louvinia that told us how he shook the musket and banged the butt on the floor.
"And killed one horse," the colonel said.
"It was a United States horse. I heard the general say myself that if he had enough horses, he wouldn't always care whether there was anybody to ride them or not. And so here we are, riding peaceful along the road, not bothering nobody yet, and these two little devils------ The best horse in the army; the whole regiment betting------"
"Ah," the colonel said. "I see. Well? Have you found them?"
"We ain't yet. But these rebels are like rats when it comes to hiding. She says that there ain't even any children here."
"Ah," said the colonel. And Louvinia said how he
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looked at Granny now for the first tune. She said how she could see his eyes going from Granny's face down to where her skirt was spread, and looking at her skirt for a whole minute and then going back to her face. And that Granny gave him look for look while she lied. "Do I understand, madam, that there are no children in or about this house?"
"There are none, sir," Granny said.
Louvinia said he looked back at the sergeant. "There are no children here, sergeant. Evidently the shot came from somewhere else. You may call the men in and mount them."
"But, colonel, we saw them two kids run hi here! All of us saw them!"
"Didn't you just hear this lady say there are no children here? Where are your ears, sergeant? Or do you really want the artillery to overtake us, with a creek bottom not five miles away to be got over?"
"Well, sir, you're colonel. But if it was me was colo-
"Then, doubtless, I should be Sergeant Harrison. In which case, I think I should be more concerned about getting another horse to protect my wager next Sunday than over a grandchildless old lady"—Louvinia said his eyes just kind of touched Granny now and flicked away —"alone in a house which, in all probability—and for her pleasure and satisfaction, I am ashamed to say, I hope—I shall never see again. Mount your men and get along."
We squatted there, not breathing, and heard them leave the house; we heard the sergeant calling the men up from the barn and we heard them ride away. But we did not move yet, because Granny's body had not relaxed at all, and so we knew that the colonel was still there, even before he spoke—the voice short, brisk, hard, with that something of laughing behind it: "So you have no grandchildren. What a pity in a place like this which two boys would enjoy—sports, fishing, game to shoot at, perhaps the most exciting game of all, and none the less so for being, possibly, a little rare this near the house. And with a gun—a very dependable weapon, I see." Louvinia said how the sergeant had set
34
THE UNVANQUISHED
the musket hi the corner and how the colonel looked at it now, and now we didn't breathe. "Though I understand that this weapon does not belong to you. Which is just as well. Because if it were your weapon—which it is not—and you had two grandsons, or say a grandson and a Negro playfellow—which you have not—and if this were the first tune—which it is not—someone next time might be seriously hurt. But what am I doing? Trying your patience by keeping you in that uncomfortable chair while I waste my time delivering a homily suitable only for a lady with grandchildren—or one grandchild and a Negro companion." Now he was about to go, too; we could tell it even beneath the skirt; this time it was Granny herself:
"There is little of refreshment I can offer you, sir. But if a glass of cool milk after your ride------"
Only, for a long time he didn't answer at all; Lou-vinia said how he just looked at Granny with his hard bright eyes and that hard bright silence full of laughing. "No, no," he said. "I thank you. You are taxing yourself beyond mere politeness and into sheer bravado."
"Louvinia," Granny said, "conduct the gentleman to the dining room and serve him with what we have."
He was out of the room now, because Granny began to tremble now, trembling and trembling, but not relaxing, yet; we could hear her panting now. And we breathed, too, now, looking at each other. "We never killed him!" I whispered. "We haven't killed anybody at all!" So it was Granny's body that told us again; only this time I could almost feel him looking at Granny's spread skirt where we crouched while he thanked her for the milk and told her his name and regiment.
"Perhaps it is just as well that you have no grandchildren," he said. "Since, doubtless, you wish to live in peace. I have three boys myself, you see. And I have not even had time to become a grandparent." And now there wasn't any laughing behind his voice, and Louvinia said he was standing there in the door, with the brass bright on his dark blue and his hat in his hand and his bright beard and hair, looking at Granny without the laughing now: "I won't apologise; fools cry out at wind or fire. But permit me to say and hope that
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you will never have anything worse than this to remember us by." Then he was gone. We heard his spurs in the hall and on the porch, then the horse, dying away, ceasing, and then Granny let go. She went back into the chair with her hand at her breast and her eyes closed and the sweat on her face in big drops; all of a sudden I began to holler, "Louvinia! Louvinia!" But she opened her eyes then and looked at me; they were looking at me when they opened. Then she looked at Ringo for a moment, but she looked back at me, panting.
"Bayard," she said, "what was that word you used?"
"Word?" I said. "When, Granny?" Then I remembered; I didn't look at her, and she lying back in the chair, looking at me and panting.
"Don't repeat it. You cursed. You used obscene language, Bayard."
I didn't look at her. I could see Ringo's feet too. "Ringo did too," I said. She didn't answer, but I could feel her looking at me; I said suddenly: "And you told a lie. You said we were not here."
"I know it," she said. She moved. "Help me up." She got out of the chair, holding to us. We didn't know what she was trying to do. We just stood there while she held to us and to the chair and let herself down to her knees beside it. It was Ringo that knelt first. Then I knelt, too, while she asked the Lord to forgive her for telling the lie. Then she rose; we didn't have tune to help her. "Go to the kitchen and get a pan of water and the soap," she said. "Get the new soap."