Major had give him a drink, too, and he was back there, making up for them two days he hadn’t et, talking a right smart about what he aimed to do to such and such a sonabitch that would try to play his durn jokes on him, not mentioning no names; but mostly laying himself in a new set of hiccups, though I ain’t going back to see.
So I waited until daylight, until I hyeard the niggers stirring around in the kitchen; then I went back there. And there was old Ash, looking like he always did, oiling Major’s boots and setting them behind the stove and then taking up Major’s rifle and beginning to load the magazine. He just looked once at my face when I come in, and went on shoving ca’tridges into the gun.
“So you went up to the mound last night,” I says. He looked up at me again, quick, and then down again. But he never said nothing, looking like a durned old frizzle-headed ape. “You must know some of them folks up there,” I says.
“I knows some of um,” he says, shoving ca’tridges into the gun.
“You know old John Basket?” I says.
“I knows some of um,” he says, not looking at me.
“Did you see him last night?” I says. He never said nothing at all. So then I changed my tone, like a fellow has to do to get anything outen a nigger. “Look here,” I says. “Look at me.” He looked at me. “Just what did you do up there last night?”
“Who, me?” he says.
“Come on,” I says. “Hit’s all over now. Mr. Provine has done got over his hiccups and we done both forgot about anything that might have happened when he got back last night. You never went up there just for fun last night. Or maybe hit was something you told them up there, told old man Basket. Was that hit?”
He had done quit looking at me, but he never stopped shoving ca’tridges into that gun. He looked quick to both sides. “Come on,” I says. “Do you want to tell me what happened up there, or do you want me to mention to Mr. Provine that you was mixed up in hit some way?” He never stopped loading the rifle and he never looked at me, but I be dog if I couldn’t almost see his mind working. “Come on,” I says. “Just what was you doing up there last night?”
Then he told me. I reckon he knowed hit wasn’t no use to try to hide hit then; that if I never told Luke, I could still tell Major. “I jest dodged him and got dar first en told um he was a new revenue agent coming up dar tonight, but dat he warn’t much en dat all dey had to do was to give um a good skeer en likely he would go away. En dey did en he did.”
“Well!” I says. “Well! I always thought I was pretty good at joking folks,” I says, “but I take a back seat for you. What happened?” I says. “Did you see hit?”
“Never much happened,” he says. “Dey jest went down de road a piece en atter a while hyer he come a-hickin’ en a-blumpin’ up de road wid de lant’un en de gun. They took de lant’un en de gun away frum him en took him up pon topper de mound en talked de Injun language at him fer a while. Den dey piled up some wood en fixed him on hit so he could git loose in a minute, en den one of dem come up de hill wid de fire, en he done de rest.”
“Well!” I says. “Well, I’ll be eternally durned!” And then all on a sudden hit struck me. I had done turned and was going out when hit struck me, and I stopped and I says, “There’s one more thing I want to know. Why did you do hit?”
Now he set there on the wood box, rubbing the gun with his hand, not looking at me again. “I wuz jest helping you kyo him of dem hiccups.”
“Come on,” I says. “That wasn’t your reason. What was hit? Remember, I got a right smart I can tell Mr. Provine and Major both now. I don’t know what Major will do, but I know what Mr. Provine will do if I was to tell him.”
And he set there, rubbing that ere rifle with his hand. He was kind of looking down, like he was thinking. Not like he was trying to decide whether to tell me or not, but like he was remembering something from a long time back. And that’s exactly what he was doing, because he says:
“I ain’t skeered for him to know. One time dey was a picnic. Hit was a long time back, nigh twenty years ago. He was a young man den, en in de middle of de picnic, him en he brother en nudder white man — I fergit he name — dey rid up wid dey pistols out en cotch us niggers one at a time en burned our collars off. Hit was him dat burnt mine.”
“And you waited all this time and went to all this trouble, just to get even with him?” I says.
“Hit warn’t dat,” he says, rubbing the rifle with his hand. “Hit wuz de collar. Back in dem days a top nigger hand made two dollars a week. I paid fo’ bits fer dat collar. Hit wuz blue, wid a red picture of de race betwixt de Natchez en de Robert E. Lee running around hit.
He burnt hit up. I makes ten dollars a week now. En I jest wish I knowed where I could buy another collar like dat un fer half of hit. I wish I did.”
The End
