‘Ah,’ the Governor said. Now he did not look at Uncle Gavin for a whole minute. When he did look up again, his face still had not altered as to expression, yet he had wiped something from it as he might have done physically, with a handkerchief. (‘You see, he was paying me a compliment,’ Uncle Gavin told me. ‘A compliment to my intelligence. He was telling the absolute truth now. He was paying me the highest compliment in his power.’) What good do you think that would do?’ he said.
‘You mean., Uncle Gavin said. They looked at one another. ‘So you would still turn him loose on the citizens of this state, this country, just for a few votes?’
Why not? If he murders again, there is always this place for him to come back to.’ Now it was Uncle Gavin who thought for a minute, though he did not look down.
‘Suppose I should repeat what you have just said. I have no proof of that, either, but I would be believed. And that would—’
‘Lose me votes? Yes. But you see, I have already lost those votes because I have never had them. You see? You force me to do what, for all you know, may be against my own principles too — or do you grant me principles?’ Now Uncle Gavin said the Governor looked at him with an expression almost warm, almost pitying — and quite curious. ‘Mr. Stevens, you are what my grandpap would have called a gentleman.
He would have snarled it at you, hating you and your kind; he might very probably have shot your horse from under you someday from behind a fence — for a principle. And you are trying to bring the notions of 1860 into the politics of the nineteen hundreds.
And politics in the twentieth century is a sorry thing. In fact, I sometimes think that the whole twentieth century is a sorry thing, smelling to high heaven in somebody’s nose. But, no matter.’ He turned now, back toward the table and the room full of faces watching them. ‘Take the advice of a well-wisher even if he cannot call you friend, and let this business alone. As I said before, if we let him out and he murders again, as he probably will, he can always come back here.’
‘And be pardoned again,’ Uncle Gavin said.
‘Probably. Customs do not change that fast, remember.’
‘But you will let me talk to him in private, won’t you?’ The Governor paused, looking back, courteous and pleasant.
‘Why, certainly, Mr. Stevens. It will be a pleasure to oblige you.’
They took them to a cell, so that a guard could stand opposite the barred door with a rifle. Watch yourself,’ the guard told Uncle Gavin. ‘He’s a bad egg. Don’t fool with him.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ Uncle Gavin said; he said he wasn’t even careful now, though the guard didn’t know what he meant. ‘I have less reason to fear him than Mr. Gambrell even, because Monk Odlethrop is dead now.’ So they stood looking at one another in the bare cell — Uncle Gavin and the Indian-looking giant with the fierce, yellow eyes.
‘So you’re the one that crossed me up this time,’ Terrel said, in that queer, almost whining singsong. We knew about that case, too; it was in the Mississippi reports, besides it had not happened very far away, and Terrel not a farmer, either.
Uncle Gavin said that that was it, even before he realized that Terrel had spoken the exact words which Monk had spoken on the gallows and which Terrel could not have heard or even known that Monk had spoken; not the similarity of the words, but the fact that neither Terrel nor Monk had ever farmed anything, anywhere.
It was another filling station, near a railroad this time, and a brakeman on a night freight testified to seeing two men rush out of the bushes as the train passed, carrying something which proved later to be a man, and whether dead or alive at the time the brakeman could not tell, and fling it under the train.
The filling station belonged to Terrel, and the fight was proved, and Terrel was arrested. He denied the fight at first, then he denied that the deceased had been present, then he said that the deceased had seduced his (Terrel’s) daughter and that his (Terrel’s) son had killed the man, and he was merely trying to avert suspicion from his son. The daughter and the son both denied this, and the son proved an alibi, and they dragged Terrel, cursing both his children, from the courtroom.
‘Wait,’ Uncle Gavin said. ‘I’m going to ask you a question first. What did you tell Monk Odlethrop?’
‘Nothing!’ Terrel said. ‘I told him nothing!’
‘All right,’ Uncle Gavin said. That’s all I wanted to know.’ He turned and spoke to the guard beyond the door. ‘We’re through. You can let us out.’
‘Wait,’ Terrel said. Uncle Gavin turned. Terrel stood as before, tall and hard and lean in his striped overalls, with his fierce, depthless, yellow eyes, speaking in that half-whining singsong. What do you want to keep me locked up in here for? What have I ever done to you? You, rich and free, that can go wherever you want, while I have to—’ Then he shouted.
Uncle Gavin said he shouted without raising his voice at all, that the guard in the corridor could not have heard him: ‘Nothing, I tell you! I told him nothing!’ But this time Uncle Gavin didn’t even have time to begin to turn away.
He said that Terrel passed him in two steps that made absolutely no sound at all, and looked out into the corridor. Then he turned and looked at Uncle Gavin. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘If I tell you, will you give me your word not to vote agin me?’
‘Yes,’ Uncle Gavin said. ‘I won’t vote agin you, as you say.’
‘But how will I know you ain’t lying?’
‘Ah,’ Uncle Gavin said. ‘How will you know, except by trying it?’ They looked at one another. Now Terrel looked down; Uncle Gavin said Terrel held one hand in front of him and that he (Uncle Gavin) watched the knuckles whiten slowly as Terrel closed it.
‘It looks like I got to,’ he said. ‘It just looks like I got to.’ Then he looked up; he cried now, with no louder sound than when he had shouted before: ‘But if you do, and if I ever get out of here, then look out! See? Look out.’
‘Are you threatening me?’ Uncle Gavin said. ‘You, standing there, in those striped overalls, with that wall behind you and this locked door and a man with a rifle in front of you? Do you want me to laugh?’
‘I don’t want nothing,’ Terrel said. He whimpered almost now. ‘I just want justice. That’s all.’ Now he began to shout again, in that repressed voice, watching his clenched, white knuckles too apparently. ‘I tried twice for it; I tried for justice and freedom twice. But it was him. He was the one; he knowed I knowed it too. I told him I was going to—’ He stopped, as sudden as he began; Uncle Gavin said he could hear him breathing, panting.
That was Gambrell,’ Uncle Gavin said. ‘Go on.’
‘Yes. I told him I was. I told him. Because he laughed at me. He didn’t have to do that. He could have voted agin me and let it go at that. He never had to laugh. He said I would stay here as long as he did or could keep me, and that he was here for life. And he was. He stayed here all his life. That’s just exactly how long he stayed.’ But he wasn’t laughing, Uncle Gavin said. It wasn’t laughing.
‘Yes. And so you told Monk—’
‘Yes. I told him. I said here we all were, pore ignorant country folks that hadn’t had no chance. That God had made to live outdoors in the free world and farm His land for Him; only we were pore and ignorant and didn’t know it, and the rich folks wouldn’t tell us until it was too late.
That we were pore ignorant country folks that never saw a train before, getting on the train and nobody caring to tell us where to get off and farm in the free world like God wanted us to do, and that he was the one that held us back, kept us locked up outen the free world to laugh at us agin the wishes of God. But I never told him to do it.
I just said “And now we can’t never get out because we ain’t got no pistol. But if somebody had a pistol we would walk out into the free world and farm it, because that’s what God aimed for us to do and that’s what we want to do. Ain’t that what we want to do?” and he said, ‘Yes. That’s it.
That’s what it is.” And I said, “Only we ain’t got nara pistol.” And he said, “I can get a pistol.” And I said, “Then we will walk in the free world because we have sinned against God but it wasn’t our fault because they hadn’t told us what it was He aimed for us to do. But now we know what it is because we want to walk in the free world and farm for God!” That’s all I told him. I never told him to do nothing. And now go tell them. Let them hang me too. Gambrell is rotted, and that batbrain is rotted,
